Characters / Bob's Burgers - The Belcher Family

Bob's Burgers Main Character Index
The Belcher Family (Bob Belcher | Linda Belcher | Tina Belcher | Louise Belcher) | Belcher Family Friends | The Pesto Family | Wagstaff School | The Fischoeder Family | Antagonists | Others | One Shot Characters

Bob's Burgers' subpage for the Belcher family.

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The Belcher Family

General

"We're Belchers, from the womb to the tomb!"

Big Bob: You got happy kids. Weird, happy kids. That's nice. You're a good dad, Junior.

A somewhat idiosyncratic but lovable family who runs the titular family restaurant.

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• Aesop Amnesia: In general, none of the Belchers are good at retaining lessons and continue to make the same mistakes over and over.
  • Linda keeps going out of her way to help Gayle even after she learns it'd be better not to baby her.
  • Tina continuously tries to win over Jimmy Jr. no matter how many times she decides to move on from him.
  • Pretty much every focus episode Louise gets has her learn the exact same lesson about being less selfish.
• All for Nothing: Very few of the Belcher's endeavors end fruitfully and almost no profit or benefits are made even after they go through a lot. It's usually due to Linda and the kids having Skewed Priorities and because they simply don't think about the consequences of their choices, with Bob being the only one who regularly expresses any sort of exasperation at the lack of profit made after all the effort they go through.
• Ambiguously Bi: All of them have shown some interest in the same sex as themselves, with the sole exception of Louise (whose moments and hints of romance have been exclusively with boys). Their level of interest ranges from only a small hint in just one episode (Tina and Linda) to outright admitting interest in multiple episodes (Bob)^note Gene is somewhere in the middle, showing the most interest of anyone but not nearly as often as Bob.
• Ambiguously Brown:
  • Lampshaded, one example is Mr. Fischoeder calling Bob "swarthy". According to Word of God, they're probably Greek-Armenian-Italian-Jewish-German, with Bob and the kids at least having some French or French-Canadian ancestry too (due to the surname "Belcher", which explicitly comes from Bob's side of the family).
  • Linda is also based on the Jewish Mother trope, implying that the Jewish ancestry comes from her side of the family.
  • Bob's maternal uncle has the surname Lombard, which has British, French, and Italian origins, implying that Bob's mother's side of the family has Italian and French ancestry (given Loren Bouchard never listed British as a possible ethnicity for the Belchers) that they passed to Bob himself (while Bob already would have had French ancestry from his father's side due to "Belcher", this confirms that he also has Italian ancestry).
  • "Sauce Side Story" all but states that Linda's side of the family also has Italian ancestry.
  • In total, this means Bob has Italian and French ancestry, while Linda has Italian and Jewish ancestry. All this leaves Armenian, German, and Greek up in the air for either Bob or Linda's side of the family.
• Ambiguously Christian: The Belchers celebrate Easter and Christmas, and Linda has taken Eucharist at least once in her life, but their celebrations of the aforementioned holidays are purely secular in nature and they're never once seen in church, with nothing suggesting they've ever been. If they are Christian, they're almost certainly non-practicing.
• Athletically Challenged: All of the Belchers are pathetically out of shape and hopeless when it comes to anything even remotely athletic. Tina is noted to have 'puberty strength' due to being the oldest and the tallest, but is far from an athlete. Gene also has no interest in sports and does very poorly when made to perform. Louise also has no interest in anything athletic, and is just awful and out of shape as her siblings are, but her lack of athleticism can at least be explained by her short stature and young age. Not helped by the fact that neither Bob nor Linda encourage their kids to try anything related to athletics, and that they're pretty weak themselves, especially Bob. Linda however has some capability when it comes to doing physical activity,
• Badass Family: Not in the action-y sense (in fact, most of them are pretty worthless in a fight, with the sole exception of Linda). But they each have managed to do amazing things either solo or together.
• Bad Liar: Tying in with their Beware the Honest Ones traits, the Belchers are all horrible liars, but especially Bob and Tina, who struggle to be dishonest in many episodes. Even those more accustomed to lying such as Linda and Louise end up choking on their lies because they can't keep up the acts too long, while Gene is too simple-minded to properly lie or even consider it. Even when there are simple white lies that can be told, the Belchers almost always struggle to decieve anybody, and the only reason they do get away with some lies is because everybody else around them is more or less an idiot.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The most straightforward example is the Belcher children who are The Heart, The Big Guy, and the Smart Girl respectively. For a female-only dynamic Linda replaces Gene as the brawn since she's the most physically imposing and a Boisterous Bruiser.
• Beware the Honest Ones: Although they're not immune to telling little white lies every now and then, at the core each Belcher family member (with the exception of Linda's family) are very candid individuals who always stick to their guns even when they're being confronted by more manipulative and malicious schemers, and they encourage honesty from each other as well. In fact, in most episodes it's their integrity that protects them from becoming corrupted and it beautifully foils any plans that these manipulative individuals have, such as Mr. Fischoeder, Doug Wheeler, and Mr. Frond.
• Beware the Silly Ones: They've all got their unique quirks and together they are occasionally crazy but they're also all determined, and they can all get pretty feisty when they have to be.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The Belcher siblings with Gene as the big, Louise as the short, and Tina as the thin. More pronounced in the test pilot episode with Tina's predecessor Daniel.
• Book Dumb: The kids do terribly in school as Linda self-admittedly did in her youth. Bob himself didn’t go to college and it’s implied he’s embarrassed of the fact, though how he did in high school isn't made clear. Deconstructed since Bob fears he and Linda are bad parents because of this, though it's implied more than once that Louise has the brainpower to excel in school if she actually cared.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Downplayed, but as seasons go by, it becomes clearer that all of the Belchers to an extent are somewhat behind the times compared to their peers. That being said though they are pretty accepting about these things even if they might not completely understand them.
  • Bob in general is somewhat out of touch with the times, mostly due to his dislike of modern trends and prefers to keep things simple and somewhat old-fashioned when it comes to his restaurant and has no interest in doing any kind of upgrade.
  • Linda is against allowing free Wi-Fi when she realizes that nobody wanted to talk to her her, showing that Linda is more comfortable with real interactions over letting people keep to themselves even though this is is more or less the norm nowadays.
  • Tina's ideas of romance are pure and idealistic akin to romance novels, but rarely ever turn out the way she imagines them. The boys she's crushed on act like typical boys and even the girls her age prefer to just casually date as opposed to Tina's romance-novel esque view of love.
  • Gene actually knows more about pop culture than the rest of his family, which is pretty impressive for an 11 year old. You'd be hard-pressed to find other boys Gene's age who know as much relatively old or obscure films, bands and actors as Gene does.
  • Much like Gene, Louise knows more older pop culture compared to other girls her age. She even Lampshades this in Apple Gore-chard (But Not Gory) with her's, Gene's and Tina's "Twister" themed costume by mentioning that most 40 year olds will get the reference but more than likely her peers will certainly not.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Linda's mother Gloria is demanding and emotionally abusive, Linda's father Al is a Useless Bystander Parent, and Bob's father Big Bob was well-meaning but distant and controlling. Bob and Linda themselves, however, are perhaps the best parents in the entire series, being open-minded, self-sacrificing, and lenient. While Bob very much invokes this trope due to how poorly his father raised him, Linda doesn't seem to recognize that she's a part of this trope as well (because she genuinely doesn't recognize that her parents were and still are awful).
• Brilliant, but Lazy: While this is more explicitly discussed with Louise, it's demonstrated that all three kids are able to display some incredible showmanship when they invest enough effort. In the movie-related short "My Butt Has A Fever," the trio come together to create an original, fully choreographed song that has their Talent Show audience (parents included) fully enraptured. The kids even wrote in a brass instrumental for the sole purpose of being able to run away from Mr. Frond without musical interruption.
• Can't Take Criticism: Not nearly as bad as Gayle, but in general the Belchers have a hard time accepting any sort of criticism towards their endeavors (i.e. Bob's cooking, pretty much anything Linda does, Gene's music, etc.) or their efforts (Tina and Louise show an equal distaste whenever they get criticized for anything, particularly schoolwork) and whenever they do get criticized they're very quick to disagree, assume that their critic doesn't understand their work or just get straight-up defensive.
• Characterization Marches On: Going off of just Season 1 (and to a lesser extent Season 2), one would be forgiven for thinking the Belchers follow the standard mold of a Dysfunctional Family. Season 3 onwards, however, marks the Belchers' transition into a truly loving (but very strange) family.
• Children Are Innocent: Downplayed with the Belcher kids but notable in different ways.
  • Tina may no longer be a child and is very much a teenager, but she surprisingly has (mostly) innocent views of love and romance, and in general she tends to naively see the best in people, even the very worst individuals, aside from Tammy of course, who Tina acknowledges as 'horrible' but unfortunately she still lets Tammy trick her due to her gullibility.
  • Gene is still young enough to qualify as a child, and very much acts like a younger one at times. His love for his mother Linda, while pure, can be seen as creepy to others, but he never understands nor comprehends how his attitude towards her can be a little off-putting.
  • The youngest Louise may be the smartest sibling, but she is still very much a child, meaning she doesn't understand the more complex aspects of the world and still believes in Santa.
  • In general, the kids together don't seem to understand just how much trouble they cause their father or how their antics (often negatively) impact their business. What they do know is that their restaurant doesn't get many customers and that they annoy Bob, but they genuinely can't comprehend that it makes them liabilities in the long run and they seldom consider its importance to their father.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Don’t be fooled by the above image, Bob can be just as weird as the rest of his family at times.
• Color-Coded Characters: The Belchers are all associated with specific colors:
  • Bob - White/Gray
  • Linda - Red
  • Tina - Light Blue
  • Gene - Yellow
  • Louise - Light Green
• Comic Trio: The kids and adults each form a distinct trio:
  • Louise, despite being the youngest, is the schemer and the only one confident enough to be The Leader. Gene is The Ditz (and even when he realizes there's a problem, he's too much of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander to care). Tina, despite being the oldest, is too insecure to refuse to play along, let alone try to stop her younger siblings.
  • Linda and Bob when paired with Teddy: Linda's ditziness and impulsive nature causes her to drag the other two into bizarre misadventures; Teddy, being an even bigger ditz, follows along without complaint; and Bob plays the Only Sane Man who often gets ignored. In episodes that specifically focus on Teddy, his and Linda's roles are switched with him being the one getting the three into shenanigans, Linda going along with them without question and Bob remaining the straight man to both of them.
• Determinator: No matter how many times they get knocked down, they'll keep getting back up.
• Did Not Think This Through: A shared flaw among the Belchers is their almost complete lack of foresight and how they almost never think long-term nor do they think about their ideas all the way through. Linda and especially the kids always want to live in the moment without thinking of the future as Louise and Gene seek instant gratification and Tina tunes out just about everything when she's focused on something. Even Bob himself is guilty of this, while he tries to think long-term, he never succeeds and any choice or idea he makes often blows up in his face in some way.
• Dysfunctional Family: Subverted, certainly a refreshing take on the traditional animated family. They each have their own quirks and moments of crazy, but they genuinely care for one another. And unlike the other sitcom families that qualify for this trope, they pretty much never show actual malicious intent towards one another. Even Louise tends to pull her punches when it comes to her family.
• Everyone Has Standards: The Belchers are a Quirky Household for certain, but there are other characters with prominent quirks that even they're baffled or completely put off by.
  • Tina, Gene and Louise are some pretty chaotic kids who can only be described as completely weird, but even they think that the likes of the Pesto Twins are weird even for them.
  • In a family-sense, while the kids don't exactly give a whole ton of respect to their parents, it's pretty clear that even they dislike the way Gloria and Al inconvenience Linda with her illogical demands, especially since it's usually at their expense due to Linda making it a problem for all of them.
  • Bob and Linda are a little weird themselves, but they meet another couple consisting of Ruthanne and Nicholas, whose quirks and inconsiderate personalities greatly put off Bob and Linda to the point of calling them a "nightmare couple" and at that point tried to get out of their idea of fun at an escape room that they get trapped in with them.
• Fatal Flaw: Stubborness. Every Belcher is very obstinate about what they believe in, which while admirable, also creates more issues than anything. Most of the conflicts that arise are usually because of their stubborn pride, especially Bob, Linda and Louise. Then there's the fact that they don't really tolerate criticism (constructive or not) and prefer to handle things their own way and at times even criticize other people who do the same thing.
• Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Downplayed with Linda and Louise but still Played for Drama. Linda often encourages Louise to be interested in feminine activities such as makeovers, slumber parties, and dolls. Louise’s resistance causes friction between the two. Louise's more masculine interests also lead her to bond better with her father, making Linda jealous and creating even more friction.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief:
  • The siblings’ strengths veer into these categories. Gene has Stout Strength and the most likely to corner his targets physically (Fighter). Tina favors charm and diplomacy to achieve her goals (Mage). Louise delights in sneakiness and tricks (Thief). This is best displayed when the three have to share a bag of candy: Gene double fists it, Tina hoards it, and Louise steals from Tina.
  • For a female only dynamic, the roles are more straightforward, since Linda is a Boisterous Bruiser and the only Belcher not completely useless in a fight. Furthermore, their signature colors (red, blue, green) match the traditional archetypes.
• Foil:
  • The core Belchers' relationship with each other serves as a contrast to their relationship with their extended family.
    • Big Bob and Bob's relationship is quite poor, as Big Bob made Bob work all day, gave him little to no freedom and Bob never had the chance to play outside or express himself in the restaurant; Bob is very close to all of his children, allows them to express themselves and their opinions of him (for better or worse), and gives them plenty (if not too much) freedom out of the benevolent intention to ensure that his kids have a better childhood than he did.
    • Linda's relationship with her parents is very much All Take and No Give, with Gloria and Al inconveniencing Linda numerous times and forcing Linda to live up to Gloria's increasing demands; Linda is a very doting mother to all three of her kids and doesn't ask for too much in return from them.
    • Linda and Gayle's relationship is similar to Linda and Gloria's, as Gayle takes way more than she gives to Linda as Linda goes out of her way to mother her and support her; Tina, Gene and Louise support each other in much healthier ways and always give back to each other when they end up taking more than they intended to.
    • Bob and Linda's relationship also heavily contrasts Gloria and Al's. Gloria drags Al along for the ride and makes pretty much every decision for him to the point of Al being a Henpecked Husband, and despite their many years together their relationship is practically dead in the intimacy department; Linda often drags Bob along for the ride as well, but their partnership is much more even and Bob is capable of speaking up for himself, and although they're getting on in years they constantly work to spice things up in their personal lives, keeping things fresh and preventing a dead-bedroom situation.
  • The Belchers' dynamic also heavily contrasts with that of the Pesto family. The Pestos are distant from each other (not counting the twins), dysfunctional, and overall they have a very poor relationship (especially Jimmy Jr. and Jimmy Sr.). The Belchers are quirky but close, and overall they have a much healthier relationship.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Downplayed. All of the Belcher siblings have each done something irresponsible and/or childish, as well as take any opportunity to get out of work. Tina leans towards the responsible end, being the one less likely to cause trouble and do whatever work her parents ask her to do. Louise will likely love to do some trolling while at work and try to convince her siblings to skip it but is still a lot more focused than Gene. Speaking of Gene, he is considered the most irresponsible of the Belcher siblings mostly due to his tendency of "Geneing out."
  • Between Linda and Gayle, it's very clearly Linda. Although it's also Downplayed as Linda herself can be extremely irresponsible and has done some pretty outlandish and childish things, she's responsible enough to have her life together while Gayle's own life is in ruins because of her foolishness and inability to take care of herself and Linda has to provide for her despite them both being grown women.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble:
  • The Belchers: Linda is the Optimist, Louise is the Cynic, Bob is the Realist, Gene is the Apathetic, and Tina is the Conflicted.
  • The Genarros: Linda is the optimist, Gloria is the cynic, Al is the apathetic, and Gayle is the conflicted.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • The Belchers: Linda (sanguine), Louise (choleric), Tina (phlegmatic), Bob (melancholic), Gene (eclectic).
  • The Genarros: Linda (sanguine), Gloria (choleric), Al (phlegmatic, literally), Gayle (melancholic).
• Freudian Trio: The Belcher children, with Gene as the id, Louise as the ego, and Tina as the superego. It's illustrated in a few of the show's plots - in "The Nice-capades," Louise combines Tina and Gene's ideas (reading a list of their nice deeds in a "public-speaking voice" and scratching a message into the ice rink, respectively) to create the title ice show. In "Thelma and Louise Except Thelma is Linda," Louise combines her siblings' projects to make her report for Frond.
  Louise: The angry hot dog [drawing, made by Gene] represents who I am in here, and then the haiku [made by Tina] represents who I want to be out there.
  • Their usual outfits even reflect this dynamic - Louise's green is a blend of Gene's yellow and Tina's blue.
• Given Name Reveal:
  • The family's surname of Belcher wasn't actually mentioned in the show proper until Season 2's "Synchronized Swimming", although it'd been used in promotional material prior to then and the title of "The Belchies" (which predates the aforementioned episode) alludes to it.
  • For twelve seasons, the surname of Linda's side of the family (and by extension Linda's maiden name) was unclear. Season 12's "Sauce Side Story" would finally rectify this, with a family tree revealing their surname to be Genarro.
• Has a Type: Inverted. Each Belcher has had at least one blond arch-nemesis — Hugo Habercore for Bob, Colleen Caviello and Cynthia Bush for Linda, Tammy Larsen for Tina^note though Tammy isn't a natural blonde, Courtney Wheeler for Gene^note though the two have since made up and are currently on good terms, and Millie Frock and Logan Bush for Louise.
• The Hecate Sisters: Both among the core Belcher family and Linda's extended family.
  • Tina is the maiden, Linda is the mother, and Louise is the crone.
  • Gayle is the maiden, Linda is the mother, and Gloria is the crone.
• His Own Worst Enemy: This appears to be a shared flaw among the Belcher family, as most of their plans are usually hindered by their own shortcomings.
  • As good of a chef Bob is, he has no real sense of business—every time an opportunity of potential profit comes in (which isn't often but isn't never), he always turns them down out of a stubborn and misguided belief that he only needs his integrity and good cooking skills to get customers coming in. However, given that his restaurant's business is almost always lacking, this naturally bites him in the ass, although the show's relative status quo means this never has any truly negative consequences.
  • Linda is a very loving mother, wife, sister and daughter to her entire family and she always means well, but unfortunately this doesn't always have positive outcomes. She enables both her sister, parents, and children (especially the first two) to the point where they all know that they can come to her when they need something while seldom giving anything back in return. This almost always causes problems for either her loved ones—for instance, when her parents and sister need something, she makes it a problem not only for herself but for Bob and her kids too. Combine this with her overly affectionate and smothering tendencies, and it means her kids don't entirely favor her either because of said tendencies—nor do they have a whole lot of respect for her because she's such an enabler.
    • Likewise, Linda has made many efforts to bond with her kids, whether it be out of jealousy of their better relationship with Bob (as in Louise's case) or a case of empty-nest syndrome (as in Tina's case). However, Linda's over-the-top actions almost always guarantee that nobody has a fun time.
  • Tina tries to fit in with her peers and has a desire to be seen by others and garner the attention of boys, but unfortunately because she cares so much about what people think of her, she goes out of her way to please others even if it's at the expense of her or her family, as she will give in to peer pressure and ditch her family when an opportunity to fit in arrives. Almost all of these instances end poorly for her.
  • Gene loves music and has expressed a dream to enter show biz, and he certainly has some talent to do so, but unfortunately he has no professional training or motivation to branch out his talent and as a result is often upstaged by those who do have professional training, and he is almost always baffled at these other talented individuals. Despite this, Gene still doesn't make an effort to improve or polish his abilities and would rather hope that his charm and sense of humor alone will take him places, not unlike his father believes.
  • Louise is an excellent schemer, but whenever her plans fail or are hindered, it's often because her own impulsivity or irrationality cause things to go awry, as seen in episodes such as "The Millie-churian Candidate" and "Drumforgiven".
• Honor Before Reason: Seems to be a mindset shared by all the Belchers respectively in their own ways.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: They're all prone to Acquired Situational Narcissism to spite being treated as unremarkable by most of the world.
• In the Blood: Quirkiness seems to run in each of the generations shared between the Belchers and Linda's extended family.
  • For Linda's side of the family, pettiness, inconsideration and selfishness seems to run in the family since Linda's great-uncle Joey Volpintesta unintentionally started a family feud by thoughtlessly buying a house his brother Tony spent his life saving up for. And then Gloria only worsened the feud by acting out pettily even to her own cousin. While Linda and Gayle are considerably better than Gloria in that department, they have done some petty things before and it's a trait Linda would then pass on to her daughter Louise, who is arguably the pettiest of her siblings and rather selfish at times (even if she isn't nearly as bad as her other relatives).
  • For Bob's side of the family, decency, bravery, grit and at times Brutal Honesty with a little bit of Chronic Hero Syndrome is something that all the born Belchers share as Bob's grandmother and great grandmother were intrepid women who stared danger in the face willingly and came out of it alive to tell the tale. Likewise, Bob's parents Big Bob and Lily were good, honest and hardworking people which enabled Bob to become a pretty great, if somewhat awkward man. Bob would then continue to be a good example to all three of his children, whom for all their faults, are good and honest children who always do the right the thing in the end.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: All of them have their selfish and rude moments (some more than others), but at the end of the day they're all decent if very quirky people.
• Junior Counterpart: All of the kids could be considered these to different adults in the family (Louise to Bob, Gene to Linda, and Tina to Gayle), sharing many of their quirks and habits.
• Kiddie Kid: Although it's downplayed with Tina and Louise, each sibling has some childish trait that is evident at various points.
  • Tina is the most mature of the Belcher siblings at age 13, yet she apparently Still Believes in Santa and other fantastical beings, no matter how outlandish they may sound, and watches The Equestranauts, which is implied to be a show marketed towards girls much younger than 13.
  • Gene is easily the most childish of the Belcher siblings and the most immature which shows in his love of scatological humor (especially concerning farts). And then there's the fact that he still has an imaginary friend at 11 years old. It's to the point that Louise has genuine trouble thinking of him as her older brother.
  • Louise, despite being the most street-savvy of the Belcher siblings, can be quite childish at times which makes sense given that she's 9 years old and she even lampshades this several times when it seems like the others forget that and it's evident through the many stuffed animals in her room, hatred for vegetables, overwhelming fear of the dentist and the fact that she still believes in Santa Claus.
  • They may get these childish aspects from their parents: Linda herself hardly acts mature despite being in her mid-40's and Bob gives voices to objects and talks to them like they're people.
• Kids Are Cruel: Gene and Louise are savages to Bob. Tina only insults him when he forbids her from doing anything she really wants to do, though she's very rarely cruel to him (outside of her Innocently Insensitive remarks, which she really thinks aren't that).
• Knight, Knave, and Squire: Even though the show is a lighthearted workplace comedy, the three children fit this trope surprisingly well:
  • Louise is the Knight. She's by far the most Hot-Blooded of the trio, and she usually tries to use threats or physical violence to solve her problems.
  • Gene is the Knave. Out of the three, he cares the least about what other people think of him, and he is normally only concerned with his own well-being.
  • Tina is the Squire, despite being the oldest of her siblings. She's shy and socially awkward, and most often would rather deal with conflict through peaceful methods.
• The Lad-ette: The Belcher women are all capable of doing things that are traditionally masculine, are sometimes even tougher than Bob and Gene, and are just as disgusting as the males, if not more so.
  • Linda loves drinking, is very gung ho by nature especially in comparison to her soft-spoken and passive husband Bob, and also mentions that she can do gross things such as flicking her boogers at the wall (something she says Gloria taught her) and she can poop anywhere—even in places that more or less appall her family.
  • Tina is arguably the most feminine of the Belcher girls but isn't above getting her hands dirty (literally, as she carried and kept cow feces), can be highly competitive and assertive to the likes of Tammy and Jimmy Jr., and also enjoys doing outdoorsy things as a Thundergirl.
  • Louise is the most masculine of the Belcher girls as she prefers hanging out with Bob and Gene, is a fan of horror and violence (especially in movies), and is the most aggressive sibling to the point of having no problem with resorting to violence to solve a situation.
• Lame Comeback: Bob and Louise are usually quite witty, but can come out with these when they're too mad to think of anything good.
• Large Ham: All of the Belchers (barring Tina) have their loud, over-the-top comical moments. Louise and Gene are the most prevalent, but Linda can also get pretty over-the-top and even Bob dips into it whenever a situation is particularly insane.
• Logical Weakness: Both Bob and Linda at times complain that their kids don't listen to them and do what they want. This seems logical, considering that parental discipline in the Belcher home is basically nonexistent.
• Loose Lips: All of them are not exactly good at keeping a secret. Linda and Tina in particular are so bad at it that they're specifically called out on this.
• Loving a Shadow: Though Tina is the worst offender, this is a recurring problem for the family, with perhaps the exception of Gene. Louise has a massive crush on Boo Boo, Linda is In Love with Love, and Bob once mancrushed on a archeologist just so he could be friends with someone he thought as being similar to Indiana Jones.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: This dynamic is at play in parent-child, husband-wife, and brother-sister, since Bob and Gene are In Touch with His Feminine Side and Linda and Louise are Tomboy with a Girly Streak. Tina is somewhere in the middle. Though it's worth noting that in spite of Linda having a tomboyish streak, Louise finds her too feminine to get along with and actually prefers Bob and Gene in spite of them being more artsy.
• The Millstone: About eighty percent of Bob's problems in the series stem from the rest of his family doing whatever pops into their heads with no forethought, common sense, or respect for him.
• Morality Pet: The entire family are this to Mr. Fischoeder. While he's usually very out-of-touch with the common man and ruthless when it comes to rent, he genuinely seems to like the Belchers and even seems somewhat affectionate towards Bob; enough to offer him numerous chances to pay or lessen his rent instead of using the restaurant space for a more lucrative business.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • The Belcher kids are as follows: Tina (Nice; peaceful and polite), Louise (Mean; selfish and vindictive), and Gene (In-Between; obnoxious and loud but well-meaning).
  • Linda and her closest female relatives: Linda (Nice; friendly and devoted), Gloria (Mean; selfish and rude), and Gayle (In-Between; shy and non-malicious but also self-centered and thoughtless).
• No Listening Skills: None of the Belchers are very attentive listeners at all, but especially the kids who pretty much tune out nearly everything that their parents Bob and Linda tell them. The only time they do listen is when there's something in it that they want.
  • The Belchers also can't seem take "no" for an answer and are almost annoyingly persistent when it comes to hearing what they want unless told (or forced) to go away. Tina and Linda are the biggest offenders, but Bob, Gene and Louise are just as obstinate.
• Only Sane Woman: Primarily regarding the kids (though with the emphasis on wiser, since they are all Book Dumb). Gene is easily the dumbest of the Belchers while Louise is the most clever. Although a ditz, Tina is usually the one to come up with ingenious solutions to problems in a pinch, and is at the very least smarter than Gene.
• Parents as People: Played for Laughs and done so in a very realistic sense as Bob and Linda acknowledge that they aren't perfect parents and admit that their kids are not all that great even though they very clearly love them dearly, but also admit that their kids' behavior is partially on them due to a complete lack of discipline and structure and the fact that they're terrified of angering or disappointing their kids in spite of being the parents. However, Bob and Linda nonetheless still do their best to raise their children to be decent and happy children while maintaining their own traits and explore their own interests outside of being parents. This is shown in a few episodes such as "Late Afternoon in the Garden of Bob and Louise" and "Mommy Boy".
  Frond: (after their kids disrupted the school play) Why didn't you step in and do something here?
  Linda: Hey, we don't know all the crazy crap our kids are doing.
  Bob: We don't want to know.
• Parental Favoritism:
  • For the Belcher parents, this trope is Zigzagged and oddly reflective of complex real life family dynamics. Bob readily admits that Tina is his most docile and supportive child (which is objectively true), Linda calls Tina her BFF, and the entire family goes to great lengths to please her. However, Bob also has trouble keeping up with her more atypical interests and actually gets along best with Louise (the two spend time alone bonding over old movies and TV), while his relationship with Gene isn't as strong. In contrast, Linda dotes on Gene the most since he is her most affectionate child and fellow showman, while her relationship with Louise is fragile and uneasy—in spite of this, she tries to have a better relationship with all her kids. In general, Bob and Linda love their kids equally, but if it came down to it Bob would probably choose Louise and Linda would almost certainly choose Gene. That said, you'd be hard pressed to ever see them forced into a situation where they had to choose.
  • Each of the Belcher kids provide an inversion:
    • Gene initially seemed more neutral, but later seasons have confirmed that Gene favors Linda. While there are only a handful of episodes directly focusing on the two, their interactions in several other episodes make it pretty obvious that Gene and Linda just click together.
    • Louise, on the other hand, has always had a clear-cut favorite—namely, Louise has a very close relationship with Bob. Bob and Louise have several episodes directly focusing on them, and these episodes show that for all her snarking, Louise deeply cherishes the time she gets hanging out with her father. It's to the point that the show itself has outright stated that Louise has always liked Bob better.
    • Tina's case is much more complex than her siblings'. She doesn't outwardly prefer either parent, but there have been many more episodes devoted to her bonding with Bob than there have been of her bonding with Linda (the only notable Tina/Linda episodes are "The Grand Mama-pest Hotel" and "Local She-ro", and the two are at odds for most of the former). Additionally, if Tina is likely to get mad at either parent it'll more likely than not be Linda. In spite of this, there have been few (if any) cases of her actually favoring either parent, and as seen in "Torpedo" (where she thinks they're divorcing) she has trouble picking between the two. That said, if you had to make her pick she'd most likely pick Bob.
  • Additionally, the kids being an inversion even extends to their parents' relatives—all three of them favor their paternal relatives over their maternal relatives. The kids treat the frequent visits and/or tasks from Gayle, Gloria and Al with passivity at best and outright complaining at worst (with Tina being the only one who even tries to act excited at all), and ultimately they show little to no real enthusiasm to see Linda's side of the family. However, they show quite a lot of excitement whenever they get to see Big Bob, the only member seen from Bob's side of the family.
• Perpetual Poverty: The restaurant only barely makes enough money for rent, which means the family doesn't get to afford very much. The Belchers don't have the most up to date technology, using flip phones and unable to afford any phones for their kids, there don't seem to be any videogames in their home, and their only means of the internet is one laptop that appears to be decades old. The reason for this is mostly because of the kids' antics making it difficult to attract customers, Jimmy Pesto's own restaurant being more publicly known, Bob's lack of business sense with his stubborn pride at cooking, and general bad luck.
• The Pig-Pen: Hygiene is nobody's strong suit in the Belcher family, especially Gene, Bob and Tina for that matter, who are often noted by other characters to smell bad. Additionally, the Belchers are all pretty disgusting in their own amusing ways.
• The Power of Family: The Belchers don't always succeed, but they have each other's backs and work together to ensure at least a somewhat happy outcome for themselves.
• Quirky Household: And how. They love each other dearly and are extremely close... and at the same time, they're all very strange individuals, with even the tamest of the bunch having plenty of quirks.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Bob and Tina are the respective Blue Oni's to Linda, Gene and Louise's Red Oni's.
• Serious Business: The Belchers, especially the kids, tend to take certain things way more seriously than they should be or otherwise would be (such as Bob's obsession with Thanksgiving or the kids' obsession with building menu towers).
• Seven Heavenly Virtues: A meta-example, compared to other animated sitcom families, the Belcher family actually uphold almost all of the seven virtues as they are all genuinely decent individuals, especially compared to the people around them.
  • Charity: Linda especially is the most generous and giving in the family (to the point where it's deteimental), Bob will ultimately choose to give back and help people over profit even if he's somewhat reluctant to, Tina acts the most selflessly of her siblings and is always willing to help and give to others, and even Gene and Louise can let go of their selfishness by behaving generously to their friends and to their family.
  • Chastity: Although Tina does have lustful desires, her ideas of romance and intimacy are pretty tame and she genuinely wants an idealistic romance. Linda is more lustful than Bob, but it's more about being romantic with him than anything, with Bob himself preferring to share tender moments with his wife. Gene and Louise in general aren't very interested in romance, with Louise being repulsed by the notion and Gene's romantic relationship with Courtney was sweet and innocent.
  • Diligence: Bob is readily the most hardworking, to the point of being a workaholic, unfortunately the same cannot be said for his kids. However, the kids do put extra effort into the things they're passionate about and will work hard towards a goal. Linda is also no slouch either as she's easily the second most hardworking at the restaurant.
  • Humility: The Belchers might not have much to brag about, but even if they did they wouldn't. Bob and Tina are the most modest of the family, although Gene and Linda exude confidence, their sense of pride is healthy and even Louise, the proudest member of the family, can keep her pride in check by having moments of humility.
  • Kindness: Each and every single Belcher is a decent, well-adjusted individual. Louise might be a troublemaker, but she never means to truly harm anyone and at heart she's a good person who always stands by her loved ones.
  • Patience: It's hard to anger the Belchers, except maybe Louise, but even then it takes a lot to really push them past their breaking point. However, even at their angriest it doesn't take much for these fits of ire to fizzle out.
  • Temperance: Possibly the only subversion since the Belchers don't always know when enough is enough as Linda eagerly drinks and her children have their own addictions (Tina with boys, Gene and Louise with food and candy) but oddly enough these indulgences aren't bad enough to get them in trouble.
• Shared Family Quirks: One of the defining characteristics of the family, which definitely helps make them feel more tight-knit. Gene and Louise have No Indoor Voice, which they get from Linda, who gets this from her own mother. Bob and Tina absolutely cannot tell lies with a straight face and love puns. Bob and Louise have a weakness for Companion Cubes, they each have a Shy Bladder, both of them are Deadpan Snarkers, and they both have a wild, vindictive streak. Linda and Louise have the twitchy eyes. Linda and Gene are musicians, big eaters, and gassholes, but apparently Gene's flatulence smells just like Bob’s. Also Linda mentions one time that nobody sheds like the Belchers, they’re like a bunch of Chewbaccas!
• Smart Dumb And In Between: The kids have this dynamic. Louise is the smart one, being the schemer and most street-savvy of the three. Gene is the dumb one, often flaking out and generally not being very aware of much. Tina is the in-between, being capable of some impressive feats of intelligence... as well as some impressive feats of stupidity.
• Sore Loser: While they might be used to being underdogs, the Belchers sometimes tend to respond poorly to losing at competitions that matter to them. Gene and Bob handle losing with somewhat more grace, but Linda, Louise and even Tina get especially miffed when they lose at things.
• Sticky Fingers: With the exception of straight-laced Bob, Linda and the kids have a weakness for taking things that catch their attention. Tina takes a baseball player’s jockstrap and has a drawer of Jimmy Jr.'s belongings (mostly socks), Gene regularly sneaks food, Louise is a borderline kleptomaniac, and Linda once stole an answer sheet for trivia night. Even Bob is capable of stealing, albeit more out of distraction than desire (he once took a jicama from the farmer's market without paying because he was too focused on helping Louise follow one of their favorite movie stars).
• Strong Family Resemblance: Each and every family member in some way or another bear a strong resemblance towards each other, especially in the case of Bob and Gene and Louise and Linda. Bob and Gene's case is so strong it's given special mention in-universe (Gene even mistakes a photo of eleven year-old Bob as a photo of himself), and the subplot of "Broadcast Wagstaff School News" shows Gene coming to terms with the fact that he'll look like Bob in the future (albeit by dressing up to look like Bob in the present).
  • Tina strongly resembles her aunt Gayle: bangs, glasses, boy-craziness.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Not always, but often, and repeatedly, and all the time. The Belchers refuse to admit when something is bothering them, though it’s so blatantly obvious their denial comes off as pathetic. Examples include Bob’s jealousy of another restaurant’s success and Louise’s crush on Boo Boo. Or Tina’s crush on... just about anyone.
• The Three Faces of Eve: The Belcher women are a textbook example.
  • Louise, appropriately enough, is the child whose only concerns are playing pranks and roughhousing, and considers anything romantic and maternal "Sick!"
  • Tina, despite her young age, is the seductress, as a boy-crazy, erotic fanfic novelist, and barely-qualifying Covert Pervert for locker room towel sizes and measurements.
  • Linda, naturally, is the wife, maternal, nurturing, forgiving and obsessed with anything baby-related (porcelain babies, Dutch babies, lil’ water bottles, etc).
• Took a Level in Kindness: In Season 1 and to a lesser extent Season 2, they were more akin to the traditional Dysfunctional Family seen in many a sitcom. Starting in Season 3, they've all become much better people towards each other and the world around them.
• Too Much Information: Pretty much the entire family has a bad habit of sharing way too much information that many others could go on without knowing. Among them, Tina, Gene and Linda (especially the latter two) are the worst offenders.
• Town Girls: Linda is the femme since she loves romance novels, makeup, theater, and motherhood. Louise is the butch who loves pranks, violence, and is One of the Boys. Tina is neither; while she loves romance like her mother, she also partakes in her siblings’ roughhousing.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The kids are obsessed with candy and getting candy to the point where it becomes outright exaggerated in later seasons.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: The show isn't exactly drawn with fanservice in mind, but even then Linda is noticeably more attractive that Bob who is balding, hairy, out of shape, and haggard. Linda has smoother skin, full hair, and a shapely figure. In-Universe Bob outright admits that he’s gross and she’s great, and Linda has admitted on more than one occasion that she didn't exactly marry Bob for his looks. In spite of this, the two remain Happily Married anyways.
• Underestimating Badassery: They are a family capable of incredible acts of craziness which, thanks to skill and/or pure dumb luck, allow them to prevail (most of the time). They're also quite talented at their respective interests, putting their peers to shame with their surprising level of skill. Despite that, people tend to quickly dismiss them, even people who should really know better.
• Unfortunate Names: When Sasha refers to the Belchers by their surname in "House of 1000 Bounces", his aunt actually thinks he's insulting them. Interestingly, the obvious joke about their surname is rarely if ever made.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Almost all of the Belchers are prone to gloating whenever they are triumphant at just about any feat. Linda is the worst offender, but Tina even indulges by mocking others with some scathing Trash Talk and Bob tends to get in a gleeful remark of "I told you so" whenever he is proven right about something.
• Weirdness Magnet: Although the family can be very weird at times themselves, they have a tendency to attract equally or even weirder people who show up for one episode or become recurring characters.
  • The adults zigzag it. Bob is prone to impulsive self-destructive behavior and is useless when it comes to the restaurant's finances, which Linda handles entirely on her own. However, Bob is the Only Sane Man for a reason, that being he's generally the first person to point out that one of Linda's crazy plans is not going to work, long before Linda herself realizes it. Bob also appears to have more common sense than Linda, though how much more varies from "a lot more" to "not much more".

Bob Belcher

Robert Belcher Jr.

"Listen, you're my children and I love you, but you're all terrible at what you do here and I feel like I should tell you. I'd fire all of you if I could."

Voiced by: H. Jon Benjamin
"Oh my God."

The owner of Bob's Burgers, the husband of Linda, and father of Tina, Gene, and Louise. Bob is the resident Only Sane Man of the Belcher household (and arguably the rest of the town), and is constantly roped into the crazy situations wrought by his family. Regardless, his family remains one of the most important things in his life (alongside cooking burgers and coming up with punny names for specials), and he'll go to hell and back to support them. While he's often just an unwilling participant in the Belchers' chaos, he's just as prone to causing such chaos himself.

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See here for tropes applying to Bob Belcher.

Linda Belcher

Linda Belcher (née Genarro)

"Mommy doesn't get drunk. She just has fun."

Voiced by: John Roberts (Actor)
"Only strippers shave above the knee."

Bob's wife and the mother of Tina, Gene, and Louise. Linda is always eager to chase new opportunities and get into the spotlight—though it often leads to consequences for herself and her family. Unlike Bob, she's very chipper and is always the first to look on the bright side of things. Even if she maybe shouldn't. Don't let that fool you, though—Linda does not take kindly to anyone who messes with her family.

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See here for tropes applying to Linda Belcher.

Tina Belcher

Tina Ruth Belcher

"I'm no hero. I put my bra on one boob at a time like everyone else."

Voiced by: Dan Mintz
"Time for the charm bomb to explode."

Bob and Linda's 13-year-old and incredibly awkward oldest daughter. Tina has three major passions: horses, boys, and erotic friend-fiction. Unfortunately for Tina, her various attempts to get the attention of the opposite gender almost always fail spectacularly—especially when it comes to her biggest crush, Jimmy Pesto Jr., who just never seems to get the hint. Despite being the oldest, Tina is almost always a follower instead of a leader, and goes along with her siblings' plans without much question.

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See here for tropes applying to Tina Belcher.

Gene Belcher

Eugene Belcher

"You should know when you hold hands with me, you are holding hands with everything I've ever eaten."

Voiced by: Eugene Mirman
"My life is more difficult than anyone else's on the planet—and yes, I'm including starving children, so don't ask!"

The 11-year-old middle child and Bob and Linda's only son. Gene fancies himself a musical genius (and is later shown to have the skill to back this up), and is constantly carrying around an electric keyboard (his favorite sound being, of course, a fart). Gene is the biggest Cloudcuckoolander of the Belcher family—if one of them is going to end up Comically Missing the Point, it'll be him. Though what he might lack in intelligence, he makes up for with heart. He doesn't need his own page, he plays to the crowd!

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• Achievements in Ignorance: "Itty Bitty Ditty Committee" reveals he has no knowledge of scales or anything serious regarding music. In spite of this, he's still managed to create two show-stopping musicals without any professional help whatsoever, both of which were prior to this episode. Later appearances show him respecting the music teacher and playing his keyboard more traditionally, so it is likely he has continued learning to play the piano off-screen.
• Actual Pacifist: It's subtle but compared to the rest of his family, Gene is the least aggressive family member, and he seems to absolutely detest the idea of anybody fighting, arguing or resorting to violence. Hell, Gene doesn't even like the idea of hurting someone's feelings. Rather, Gene prefers to find a fair and peaceful solution where neither party (even his enemies) get hurt. In fact, when Tina and Louise are at odds with each other, Gene refuses to take sides.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Downplayed; he was born male and still primarily identifies as male, but he has also crossdressed at different opportunities, referred to himself as a girl on multiple occasions, and shows no problem when other characters (primarily his sisters) do the same, sometimes even insisting that they call him such. If he is anything at all, it's possible that he's genderfluid.
• Ambiguously Bi: Within the family, he's behind only Bob in this regard.
  • Gene has reciprocated feelings for Courtney Wheeler on two occasions (although they've broken up both times), which means he likely does have an interest in girls, but he's also fantasized about having a man draw him naked (a la Titanic) in "Mutiny on the Windbreaker".
  • There was also this:
    Louise: What ever happened to Roberto? Did you try showering with him again?
    Tina: ...Yeah...
    Gene: ...Maybe...
  • He was also very enthusiastic about kissing Jimmy Jr. in "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?"
    Tina: When I kiss Jimmy Jr. under the disco ball, it will be like we're all kissing Jimmy Jr. under the disco ball.
    Gene: I call first!
    Louise: Really?
    Gene: Well if I'm gonna kiss him I don't want to go after you guys.
    Linda: I'll go last, I'm fine with that.
    Bob: We're not kissing Jimmy Jr!
    Gene: YES WE ARE!
  • Upon learning that Henry Haber did his girlfriend's history homework, Gene's first response is to consider dating Henry for the same benefits.
  • He got banned from the computer in one episode after he admitted to visiting a website about transvestites. On the other hand, he was traumatized by what he saw, but that may be because it was porn, and he's eleven.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Inverted, as he's the Annoying Older Sibling to Louise (though his lack of maturity has made Louise feel as if she's the older one). However, he's younger than Tina, still playing this trope straight.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Gene is distracted very easily, and his inability to focus has caused problems on multiple occasions. The family even refers to the act of losing focus on the task at hand as "Geneing out."
• Attention Whore: Seems to be Gene in general as of Season 3. He makes it clear that he'd prefer attention from his art and/or performance than just attention in general. This is most notable in "Beefsquatch".
• Berserk Button: Notably in "What About Blob?", he gets upset when his family calls him annoying.
• Big Brother Instinct: While rarely seen, Gene has a protective side for his younger sister, Louise. The plot of "Large Brother, Where Fart Thou?" brings it into the spotlight, where Louise believes he doesn't have one and is proven wrong by the end when he defends her from Logan.
• Big Eater: He is shown to be excited at the thought of food and eating. You can trick him into doing something if it's food-related.
• Big Fun: Will generally prioritize having a good time of things.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He does have genuine talent and the capability to become a decent performer but doesn't want to put any effort into practicing, nor is he capable of listening to instructions and dialing down his Large Ham tendencies when asked. Gene would rather keep doing what he's doing and get people to appreciate it, but then gets his feelings crushed when he realizes his antics are more annoying than entertaining.
• Brutal Honesty: In "It Snakes a Village", he basically tells Tina to her face that he thinks her life sucks.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: While mostly using his keyboard to record fart noise, he can write some zazzy music when he puts in the effort. Even Bob is surprised he wrote "Electric Love". He also creates a pretty impressive electric recorder by combining a recorder with his megaphone in "Itty Bitty Ditty Committee".
  • In "The Plight Before Christmas," Gene almost single-handedly turns a school pageant from "experimental torture" to genuinely moving, first by deducing they should limit what notes each student should play and then by removing the notes they shouldn't play from each xylophone (14 in total) to significantly reduce their chances of playing a wrong note. That's a level of problem-solving most adults would struggle with, and Gene did it during an intermission.
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: His favorite president is Bill Pullman, not realizing that was just a movie.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Downplayed example, but Gene tends to mutter "Aww, boo..." when disappointed or bummed about something, usually if it pertains to him being unable to do something he'd like to.
  • "[Insert person/thing here], give me strength!", used whenever Gene needs to muster up the courage to do something (among the people/things he calls to are Queen Latifah and Bubba Gump Shrimp Company).
• Chivalrous Pervert: With his sound system. The fact that he heard his grandparents "doing it" won't help matters.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Even by this show's standards, Gene is pretty out there.
• Comically Missing the Point: Quite often, in fact.
• Cowardly Lion: In "It Snakes A Village", he refused to go in the woods to save his sisters while they were sinking in quicksand because he thought that a snake would eat him. In spite of this, however, he does push his fear down long enough to rescue them at the last minute. It's made more impressive by the fact that "Just the Trip" confirms he didn't lose his fear—in fact, he only gets more terrified of snakes as time goes on—but he nonetheless pushes it aside to save his family.
• Deadpan Snarker: At times.
• The Ditz: Far and away the dumbest member of the Belcher family. He can't even remember the name of his father's establishment (and was seriously certain it was Dad's Burgers).
• Dirty Kid: Likes to talk about penis-shaped things and in the second episode he recorded the sounds his grandparents made whilst making love. There's also that time he made a table setting themed after menstruation.
• Everything Is an Instrument: Although he primarily uses his keyboard, he's made instruments out of random objects, such as a brick in "The Belchies" or a napkin dispenser in the movie.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He's a huge Momma's Boy and is the closest of the Belcher kids to Linda, but even he gets overwhelmed by Linda's My Beloved Smother tendencies in "Motor, She Boat", to the point of working with Louise to try and escape the situation. Similarly, every time Linda has to do something for Gloria, Gene (and everyone else except for Tina) won't even be willing to help her out, only opting to participate if it means he gets to show off for himself but not for Gloria or even Linda's sake.
  • He will eat anything. Anything. Even food he's allergic to (like shellfish). Even food that's been on the ground (like a pinworm-infested tater tot). Even food that's expired (like two-week-old chicken parmesan). Even stuff that's not food at all (see Extreme Omnivore below). But you will never, never get him to eat rum raisin sorbet.
  • He likes to stir up some trouble with his siblings, but even Louise's more intense plans for mischief have him sweating and he often tries to either get out of it or attempt to talk her out of it. For instance, when Louise finds a moldy cantaloupe in "Large Brother, Where Fart Thou?", Gene tries to talk her out of throwing it, and when she does it anyway and it hits Logan, Gene tries to get her to apologize before Logan gets too angry to reason with.
  • "Video Killed the Gene-io Star" reveals that when he's not just goofing off with fart noises, he has rather high standards for music. He dislikes a song that Courtney and her friends love because he finds it derivative of several other songs, and considers participating in a music video for it unworthy of his time, to the point that even food-based bribery isn't enough to convince him at first.
• Extreme Omnivore: He really enjoys eating the Fracas Foam that the family kept winning on the game show. Perhaps a bit too much.
  • He also sprayed pepper spray into his mouth (and enjoyed it after the initial shock), two-week old moldy chicken parmesan, and a tater tot that fell out of his pocket onto the school's bathroom floor then picked up by a kid coming out of the toilet (though both of the latter two got him sick). He also attempts to eat a ball of earwax, although he thinks it's simply an unwrapped piece of candy.
• Fatal Flaw: His inability and unwillingness to change or adapt his acting and musical abilities and his lack of interest in practicing tend to rob him of an engaged audience.
• Fat Bastard: At his worst, he can act self-absorbed and attention-hogging.
• Fat Idiot: Pretty chubby, and not-so-smart.
• Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Or, as Gene has repeatedly stated about just about anything...
  Gene: This is me now!
• Gasshole: In general, Gene loves farts and farting. His megaphone and keyboard have fart noises preset to certain buttons/keys, and after his grandparents stayed in his room over a weekend, he declared he had to go "re-fart" his room.
• Groin Attack: Never anything too painful, but he tends to suffer from these every now and again. Quite a few of them are self-inflicted, such as him spilling hot sauce while sitting on the toilet.
  Gene: (after getting hit with a dodgeball while roleplaying as Bob) It's okay, I've had my kids.
• Growing Up Sucks: Gene's been hit with this several times, particularly in "Seven-tween Again" where he realizes that his status as the middle child and being eleven years old in between his oldest, thirteen-year-old sister and his youngest nine-year-old sister that he's not far along his puberty years and no longer being considered a 'kid'. For the rest of the episode he resorts to hanging around kids much younger than Louise just to hold onto his childhood a little longer.
• Halloween Costume Characterization: Many of Gene's costumes are at least partially based around musicians, fitting his love of music.
• Hidden Depths:
  • While the first thing he does with his keyboard is play obnoxious noises (from farts to rather disturbing sexual moans), don't let that fool you—when he actually tries to make a song, he knocks it out of the park. His first major musical outing, the love ballad "Electric Love" (from the episode "Topsy"), wouldn't sound half-bad on Broadway, and even some of his improvised songs aren't half-bad.
  • He has extensive knowledge of wedding rings.
  • He's also very knowledgeable in pop culture and tends to make more pop culture references than anyone else in the family.
  • Despite his outgoing and confident demeanor, Gene has expressed some real anxieties akin to growing up and getting out of his comfort zone in episodes such as "Cheer Up Sleepy Gene" and "Seventween Again".
  • Gene has an appreciation of video games, when he's not playing around with his Casio, he also enjoys the drum machine at a store he likes visiting, gets fixated on a portable game centered around dressing up a 3D cat and willingly saved up money for the chance to play a virtual reality game.
  • Might not be noticeable at first but Gene is something of a pacifist especially compared to his sisters and even his parents. Louise and Linda are often the first to seek out some sort of violent retribution and even Bob and Tina can be provoked into vengeance when riled up, but violence or revenge never cross Gene's mind once. Even when miffed, Gene never entertains the idea of getting back at someone, instead preferring to use a diplomatic approach and attempt to reason with the opposing party. In fact, most of his methods are considerably non-violent, i.e: merely trying to outshine Courtney's musical, challenging Dino to a drum-machine battle, trying (and failing) to stop Louise from provoking Logan any further, taking Logan's bullying without actually fighting back, just to name a few. This extends to Gene not enjoying pranking people like his mother and sisters in "What a (April) Fool Believes" because he doesn't want to make anybody feel confused or uncomfortable.
• Idiot Savant: Possibly. Gene seems to be almost a natural when it comes to making music and has made some pretty darn good rhythms, songs and lyrics—and he's done all of this without the experience and the technical knowledge of composing music. He didn't even know what a 'key' meant in basic music terminology.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Downplayed but in addition to being one of the dumbest members of the family, he also has a few Jerkass moments here and there.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: While he has no problem with hanging out with other guys, he has stated that he prefers the company of girls, and his primary interests are in the arts. This is likely a result of him spending almost all of his time with his two sisters, both of whom are close to him in age.
• Incest Subtext: Various episodes imply that Gene is genuinely in love with Linda, to the point where he outright admits he wants to marry her in "Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid". The other Belchers have taken notice; Linda thinks it's sweet while Bob, Tina, and Louise are all very uncomfortable with it.
  Gene: Mother, I've never been more attracted to you!
• Ink-Suit Actor: He's a kid version of his voice actor, Eugene Mirman.
• Instant Expert: Averted. Gene would like to believe he's instantly amazing at whatever he does without any practice and doesn't want to work hard to improve himself, but it's pointed out that that's not how life works. He actually gets this from both of his parents.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: More of a buffoon than a full-blown jerk, but he does have some selfish moments. They generally aren't intentional, however, and he does mean well.
• Junior Counterpart: Gene definitely takes the most after his mother Linda and can be considered this for her, with his love for music, Attention Whore tendencies and overall zest for life as well as his close relationship with his family.
• Keet: Generally a bubbly, friendly kid you'd want to know despite his more annoying tendencies.
• Kiddie Kid: At times. Oscillates wildly between childishness and oddly mature behavior.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Tends to spout out incorrect facts and will stubbornly refuse to admit the people correcting him are right. In the second episode alone, he assumes The Chronicles of Narnia was written by Salman Rushdie and outright refuses to give in when Bob informs him that this is incorrect (first telling Bob that he's wrong and then lying that he just looked it up). Several seasons later he kept insisting that Old Yeller was called Old Yellow.
• Large Ham: Takes after Linda in his love for the performing arts.
  • The exuberant tone and cadence with which he always speaks makes everything he says sound like a joke or sarcastic remark, whether it is or not.
• The Load: As noted under Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!, Gene is known for just completely flaking on the family and making tasks more difficult. Linda lampshades it at one point, saying that Bob entrusted Gene with a task simply to have Gene's screwups as an easy source of blame if he couldn't succeed on his own merits.
  • "Best Burger" deconstructs it. When Gene finds out his family views him as such, he reacts about as well as a real person would—his self-esteem plummets to an all-time low and when he screws up again, he begins to think that all he does is make things worse. Bob has to personally tell Gene that although he can veer into this trope at times, it's not his defining trait and he has value as a human being.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Downplayed since Gene's pretty comfortable and happy with where he stands in the family. Although sometimes he does make a spectacle of himself for the sake of attention, he overall doesn't have much hang-ups about being the middle child. The closest anyone gets to talking about it is "Beefsquatch", where his sisters chalk up his desire for fame as being a result of this trope.
• Momma's Boy: If there's one thing Gene is open about (besides literally everything), it's his love for his mother. He and Bob are close, but Gene is shown multiple times to prefer Linda.
  • In "Torpedo", when he and his siblings mistakenly assume Bob and Linda are divorcing, they try to claim a parent's custody. Gene is first to go, and he picks Linda without hesitation.
  • In "Cheer Up Sleepy Gene" it's revealed that he carries Linda's maxi pads around to keep himself calm and when his friend Alex's mother blows him kisses he mildly freaks out because she's not Linda.
    Gene: Why? Because I'm eleven and I still love Mom.
  • "Every Which Way But Goose" shows that Gene still occasionally has Linda feed him his food airplane-style. Louise and Bob even snark about going to their wedding.
  • Taken to rather creepy extremes in "Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid" when Gene asks to be married to Linda in Tina's story. Tina, Louise and Bob are all a bit creeped out by this, while Linda thinks it's sweet and Gayle tells Bob not to be a prude.
  • It's practically in the title for "Mommy Boy", where Gene and Linda are shown to have a designated hangout time (known as "Spa-turday") much like Bob and Louise have. Gene is shown to cherish this time deeply, and when Linda briefly stops doing it to pursue her own interests Gene is shown to be unable to cope.
• Naked People Are Funny: Not outright naked, but he occasionally gets stripped to his underwear in the aftermath of certain escapades (such as a brief scene in "The Hauntening" and at the end of "The Kids Rob a Train").
• Never My Fault: Never a malicious example, but Gene never really understands how some his creative endeavors, like his fart sounds or noises, can really annoy people and assumes they simply don't get his creative vibe.
• Nice Guy: He's not immune to being selfish and can be obnoxious at times, but his heart is always in the right place (especially when it comes to his family) and when trouble arises Gene always tries to find a peaceful solution to it so nobody (even people he doesn't necessarily like) gets hurt or even angrier.
• No Indoor Voice: He's never heard of the term.
• Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: In "Turkey in a Can", Gene says he refuses to use the bathroom at night because he thinks there's a ghost in there.
• Odd Name Out: Of the three currently-living men in the Belcher family (not counting Linda's father Al since Linda married into the family), Gene is the only one not named Robert. His paternal grandfather doesn't seem too pleased that Gene broke the tradition, because soon after Gene's birth he asked Bob if it was too late to change Gene's name (while he doesn't outright say so, it's implied that he wants it to be changed to Robert III).
• The One Guy: The only male Belcher sibling.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "My Fuzzy Valentine" confirms that his full name is Eugene, but otherwise he's exclusively called Gene.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Any time he refuses food, Bob can tell that he is very upset. Relatedly, any time food-based bribery fails to win him over, it's clear there's pretty much no convincing him.
• Out of Focus: Of all the Belcher family, Gene tends to get the least direct focus. He receives far less focus episodes than his sisters or parents in a given season, and his plotline in the movie is the least consequential (only having two minor scenes at the start and end).
• Person as Verb: The rest of the Belchers use his name as a synonym for forgetfulness. Gene doesn't take it too well when he finds out.
• Phrase Catcher: Whenever Gene says or does something that exasperates his father, Bob will always respond with a deadpan "Gene."
• The Pig-Pen: Gene has a lot of gross habits. He keeps a secret cat (which he apparently shares a litterbox with) in his room, pees in his burger suit and rainboots, eats expired or inedible food (such as a tater tot that fell on the bathroom floor and was picked up by Peter Pescadero as he came out of a stall) and almost never cleans himself to the point where he had hot sauce on his neck for three days straight.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Gene's main role in the series is to play the goofy comic relief with his constant stream of one-liners and non-sequiturs. It's to the point where unless the episode specifically focuses on him, that's essentially all he does. It's discussed in "I Get Psy-chic Out of You"; Tina claims that while Gene currently occupies the role, she could try it out if she wanted. She then makes a joke followed by Gene repeating said joke seconds later; despite there being no difference between each of them saying it, Bob outright says it was funnier when Gene said it.
• Shared Family Quirks:
  • Downplayed in comparison to his sisters, but like his mother he can fart on command and put gross stuff in his mouth. Bob also apparently shared his curiosity over food as a kid.
  • Like his mother, Gene can be very obnoxious and oblivious when they're trying to be entertaining. They're always eager to have a chance to put on a show, and both are rather desperate to have their creativity validated by others despite being the only ones who find it fun. They then get very hurt and emotional when people criticize their efforts (Linda with her bed and breakfast, Gene with his sounds), and instead of improving will just double down until others "get it." This is best exemplified in "All That Gene" where Linda's the only one who really enjoys Gene's incredibly hammy acting which he is literally incapable of toning down no matter how much he's asked by a director to stop.
• Sleeps in the Nude: In "Three Girls And A Little Wharfy", Gene attempts to go to school naked because it's Pajama Day at school and he slept naked the previous night. Unsurprisingly, Bob and Linda veto the idea, though Gene compromises by eating breakfast naked.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch:
  • In "The Unbearable Like-Likeness of Gene", he plans on going to a Catholic school to avoid Courtney. His planned alias is called "Eugenia".
  • In Tina's story in "The Gayle Tales", Gene is changed to a girl to match his sisters (and Gayle). Once again, his name is changed to Eugenia.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks very similar to Bob as a kid, albeit chubbier. While all the Belchers share a resemblance, Gene and Bob's is so strong it's pointed out in-universe. At one point, Gene actually mistakes a photo of 11 year-old Bob for himself.
• Toilet Humor: While farts are by far his stock in trade, Gene is practically guaranteed to be present for (and probably the one delivering) any joke that's toilet-related. Not to mention an entire episode devoted to him bonding with a talking toilet.
• Too Much Information: Loves telling people things they would rather not know. The highlight is probably in "Mazel-Tina", where he (completely unprompted) reveals that he's uncircumcised.
• Vocal Dissonance: Sounds more like a grown man than a preteen.
• Vocal Evolution: Eugene Mirman's take on Gene sounded much quieter and less hammy in the first few episodes. Starting with Season 2, Gene now sounds much scratchier and louder.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: He's begun developing shades of this.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Literally; "It Snakes A Village" reveals Gene has a crippling fear of snakes. He pushes it aside to save his sisters from a quicksand pit, but "Just the Trip" shows the fear remains.
  ♫ I'm... not afraid of ghosts, ♫
  ♫ I'm not afraid of sharks, ♫
  ♫ I'm not afraid of cancer, ♫
  ♫ I'm just afraid of snakes! ♫
  ♫ They really creep me out! ♫
  ♫ Where are their arms and legs?! ♫
  ♫ IT'S NOT OKAY! ♫

Louise Belcher

Louise Belcher

"You could sell your soul. I did, and look at me. I'm fine."

Voiced by: Kristen Schaal

"I smell fear on you."

Bob and Linda's 9-year-old youngest daughter. Louise is wise beyond her years and has something of a psychopathic streak to her. Her favorite pastimes are creating chaos and devising (sometimes questionably legal) elaborate schemes to make cash, and she is almost always the ringleader during the Belcher kids' misadventures. However, beneath all this she truly does care about her family, her father in particular.

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See here for tropes applying to Louise Belcher.

Linda's Extended Family

Gayle Genarro

Gayle Genarro

"Guess who's on new meds!"

Voiced by: Megan Mullally
"I've never been on a second date before that the other person knew about."

Linda's neurotic younger sister, Bob's sister-in-law, and the Belcher kids' maternal aunt. Gayle is a Crazy Cat Lady whose life is a complete and utter wreck, causing her to often be jealous of her older sister's stable lifestyle.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: She frequently shows signs of having a crush on Bob. It's most prominent in "Dr. Yap", but it also shows up in brief scenes in other episodes (such as the opening scene of "The Gayle Tales" or her first scene in "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled"). In addition to the fact that Bob is already married, he heavily dislikes Gayle, and is mortified every time this crush comes up.
  • She outright kisses Mort in "Turkey in a Can". Mort's reaction makes it clear that he's not interested.
  • Interestingly, it's mostly just in regards to Bob; most of Gayle's other crushes don't mind or even reciprocate.
• Adaptational Heroism: Invoked in "The Gayle Tales", much like how in the same episode the kids also invoke Adaptational Villainy in regards to Linda. In order to get out of the house after being grounded by Linda, the kids each write stories about Gayle. As a means to butter her up, all their stories portray Gayle as a kind and gentle heroine who all the men (especially Scott Bakula) find attractive, heavily contrasting her actual neurotic, weird and selfish personality.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Downplayed, as Linda is ironically the one person tolerant and patient with Gayle — Bob is usually the one who gets frustrated and annoyed by her, even saying he hates her in "Bob Makin' Gayle Sled" (though later he takes it back).
  • Worth noting is that sometimes even Linda's patience with Gayle can grow thin, primarily when she's being even more difficult and grating than usual—however, Linda never openly expresses it to Gayle's face.
  Linda: (after a phone call with Gayle) Well newsflash, I'm already tired of Gayle.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: If her comment in "Dr. Yap" about what French-kissing Bob feels like is any indication, she makes out with her cats.
• Black Sheep: On her side of the family, her parents pretty much disregard her, her extended family is implied to not have been close to her, and her big sister Linda puts up with her out of obligational familial love but is well aware of how much of a screw-up her sister is and doesn't expect her to improve any time soon. And then there's the fact that her brother-in-law Bob can't stand her, Gene and Louise don't think highly of her at all, and while Tina can tolerate her even she has her limits. Furthermore, while the rest of her family members for the most part have stable lives and careers, Gayle's life is by her own admission awful and she's got very little to her name.
• Cain and Abel: A downplayed Cain to Linda's Abel. While they get along great, Gayle has a tendency to try and push Linda down to pull herself up, most prominently by trying to steal Linda's love interests (previous boyfriends in the past; Bob in the present) to satiate her own loneliness without any regard for Linda's feelings.
• Can't Take Criticism: To the point that the Belchers have to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering a complete emotional meltdown. Gayle herself acknowledges it (not that she does anything to grow past it).
  Gayle: Okay, so tell me what worked and what didn't, and be honest. Just remember I hate criticism.
• Characterization Marches On: Is a wreck of a human being at first, to such a degree that even minor things set her off completely, but she gradually becomes a tiny bit more stable as time passes (at least to a point where she's no longer freaking out at the drop of a hat). She mentions changing medications in her second appearance, so it could just be that.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Gayle has especially weird ideas and art projects she creates, including a series of paintings depicting animal butts and a giant board game with loads of silly rules that takes nearly all day to play.
• Cool Aunt: Gayle would really like to think of herself as this. But make no mistake, she's anything but. Tina is the only Belcher kid willing to show her any modicum of respect, while Gene and Louise have expressed their belief that she should be placed in an asylum and clearly don't look up to her in any way, shape, or form. In all fairness, it's hard to be a role model when you're a mentally unstable, neurotic mess who can't keep a job and has committed various crimes (such as pet abduction and arguably sexual harassment).
  • However, her many, many flaws aside, she is a decent enough aunt when it counts as she gives her nieces and her nephew gifts that they actually appreciate (no matter how small they are), gets along relatively well with her niece Tina, and made a point to call Linda and tell her that Louise made it to her apartment safely when she ran away. Not to mention that she also had no problem sheltering Louise, Gene and Tina when they supposedly ran away from home and allowing them in her apartment despite the limited space.
• Crazy Cat Lady: Downplayed, as she has only three cats—but she outright stole one of them from somebody's porch and, considering her mindset, either claims or believes it was a stray. She's trying to get more, but the adoption center (understandably) keeps turning her down.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Above all Gayle desperately wants validation and love, wanting nothing more than a stable relationship and actively seeks out almost any man who might be available (including those who aren't even available). Unfortunately for her, her neurosis and other many, many issues prevent her from achieving such.
• The Ditz: Gayle's intelligence is sorely lacking and she's very easy to fool, with her believing even the most blatant of lies.
• Drives Like Crazy: Mostly in the modern episodes.
  • In "An Incon-Wheelie-ent Truth", while Bob and Linda are trying to bring the Wheely Mammoth to the roller rink with Linda riding with Gayle and Bob driving with the kids, Bob and Linda accidentally bump into each other on the highway. Bob distracts the kids while Gayle speeds past Bob at 90 mph.
  • In "The Pumpkinening", it was revealed that Gayle lost her license for letting her cats drive. She got it back by the time of "Sauce Side Story".
• Eating Pet Food: To nobody's surprise, she reveals in "There's No Business Like Mr. Business Business" that she has a fondness for cat food (she prefers it heated up with oatmeal).
• Edible Theme Clothing: Once went to church with a dress made out of shrimp.
• Enemy to All Living Things: Despite owning three cats, they all seem to not like her very much. She keeps her cats on a vegetarian diet, which is the exact opposite of what cats should be eating. She forcefully puts Pretty Paws on them and they have apparently scratched her and went for her eyes. She has mentioned that Mr. Business, the cat she essentially stole, hates the sound of her voice (which, considering she abducted him from his home, is quite understandable). It's said the pound will not give her another cat, likely because they recognize she's not a good pet owner, and it's a wonder she still has the cats they did give her (assuming she didn't steal them like she stole Mr. Business).
• Everyone Has Standards: It's heavily implied that she found out Mr. Frond was cheating on her and broke up with him.
  • Gayle was genuinely shocked to hear that Linda threw her chance to win a Pumpkin carving contest for her sake. Indicating that Gayle at the very least plays fair. It's quickly downplayed though when she claims that her pumpkin's carving (that just had mere holes in them) was better than Linda's creative design.
  • Even she doesn't get along with nor seems to really like her mother Gloria. Say what you will about Gayle, but even she won't tolerate Gloria's nonsense the way Linda does.
• Extreme Omnivore: According to the Belchers, she once ate lipstick.
• Fictional Board Game: Has created one known as "Gayle Force Winds". It's so complex that it takes an entire day to finish (which Bob and Linda have had to sit through), and Gayle can just hit the Reset Button whenever she feels like it. Gayle has apparently tried to pitch it to major board game companies, and attributes her failures to "Gayle Force Winds" being too good for them to even touch.
• Foil: To her sister Linda. Both are eccentric and artistic, but that's where the similarities end.
  • Linda is confident, happy, and emotionally stable; Gayle is insecure and neurotic.
  • Linda has a steady job with her husband's restaurant; Gayle quits whatever job she gets before she can even get a single paycheck.
  • Linda is Happily Married to Bob and a loving mother towards her three kids; Gayle is single, childless, and a poor owner towards her three cats.
  • Linda's family loves and supports her even at their worst; Gayle's family (Linda being the exception) looks down on her and her cats are hostile towards her.
  • Linda has decent social skills and a small but loyal group of friends who enjoy her company; Gayle has no friends and the few people she meets tend to be uncomfortable by her mere presence.
  • Linda overall leads a comfortable, fulfilled life; Gayle's life is in ruins to the point that everyone (including Gayle herself) knows it.
• Footsie Under the Table: In "Dr. Yap", she aggressively does this to Bob while pursuing him.
• Forceful Kiss: She forcefully kisses Mort in "Turkey in a Can". He's clearly trying to get her to stop.
• Freudian Excuse: While the sheer intensity of Gayle's strangeness and attitude implies inherent mental illness, it's clear her upbringing was pretty damaging.
  • Gayle's fragility and arguably her selfishness comes from having been babied all her life. She's not used to being told "no", especially because Linda enables her behavior.
  • Having a mother as neglectful and selfish as Gloria doesn't seem to have done wonders for Gayle. It's clear from "Have Yourself a Maily Linda Christmas" that the two don't have a good relationship, and assuming this runs all the way back through Gayle's childhood it's little wonder that she has so many issues as an adult (in general, it's telling that Gayle has to pretend to be obscenely rich to get Gloria to like her).
  • Lampshaded by Bob in "An Incon-Wheelie-ent Truth". When Linda reveals her parents frequently lied to Gayle in her youth, Bob points out that this probably contributed to Gayle's current state of being.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Played with, as she's The Relative Most Don't Like. While Linda certainly does love and care about Gayle as her sister, no one in her current family generally seems to like Gayle and only associate with her out of proximity to Linda. Tina shows some shades of respect to Gayle, while Gene and Louise think she needs to be hospitalized and Bob outright admits his hatred of Gayle. When Bob eventually admits he does love Gayle because she's family, that love comes solely out of obligation to Linda and only because of Linda. One of the best examples of this comes from Linda having to talk Gayle into sticking with her new job as a security guard in an art museum by letting her think one guy is a potential thief casing the joint. When she began the conversation over the phone, Bob, Gene and Tina were in the restaurant. When Linda was finished and announced "And that's why I'm the world's greatest sister," she finally noticed everyone left. It's a perfect representation of how Linda spends so much energy babying her sister she doesn't realize how much Bob and the kids want nothing to do with anything Gayle-related.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It becomes increasingly obvious overtime that Gayle is envious of her sister Linda's more fulfilling and somewhat successful life (a stable job and family). She has to bring Linda down just to feel better about herself and at times will even take things away from Linda just so she can have it for herself, but it's mostly done out of intense insecurity rather than any malice. Fortunately, Gayle is mostly harmless and Linda never takes any of her actions seriously and Gayle still genuinely loves her sister and assures her of this despite her jealousy.
  Gayle: Is this just because sometimes I fly into violent rages of jealousy and cry in the closet until I throw up?
• Hates Their Parent: Her relationship with Gloria is, for lack of a better word, awful. It's to the point that the only way to end an argument between them is by distracting them from it entirely.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Between her board game with a protagonist named Princess Gayle and the entire plot of "The Gayle Tales", she has an affinity for stories where she's the perfect protagonist that everyone loves.
• Hidden Depths: Despite Gayle's consistent lack of artistic talent, she can sing surprisingly well when it counts. Gene casts her as one of the singing voices in "Topsy" because she's a better singer than Tina, and in "Purple Rain-Union" her personally-written song to Derek Dematopolis (although very inappropriate) earned her, Linda and the Ta-Ta's their first round of applause from the same crowd Linda was initially afraid to perform in front of.
  • In the same episode she's shown to be a pretty decent keyboard player as well.
  • With how genuinely passionate she is about art and creating things, episodes subtly imply that there is some untapped artistic potential in Gayle as she prefers to use creative outlets to cope with her reality, but because she never gets any of the constructive criticism that she needs, she simply hasn't had any room to improve.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: To the grand surprise of nobody, Gayle was one during high school, if the incredibly sexual songs she wrote for Linda's band are any indication. Interestingly, this makes the similarities between her and Tina even more apparent.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Gayle is a desperately lonely woman with few friends and a less than stellar dating record. Before bedtime, she has to play pretend that the apocalypse has killed everyone on Earth, including the men, so it will be okay to sleep alone. She does this every night... and apparently she sleeps like a baby.
• Informed Attractiveness: Like her sister, some people have referred to Gayle as attractive. However, like Linda, most of the men who are interested in her are depicted as being over-emotional and desperate.
• Insane Troll Logic: In the Season 10 premiere, upon arriving at the Belchers' apartment, which is currently empty (aside from her and Linda), she doesn't conclude that Bob and the kids are off somewhere (which they are; they're currently at the water park). Rather, she somehow comes to the conclusion that all this means Linda was lying about having a husband and kids in the first place.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Gayle is, to put it bluntly, a moron, as well as selfish, incompetent, does nothing but inconvenience her family members and to make matters worse she is completely unable to accept any criticism. While she's not as bad a few others, there are very few people in her family and in general, who can tolerate being around her.
• I Reject Your Reality: While she's aware on some level about her life being awful, she also spends a lot of time willfully denying just how bad it is by insisting she's "the hot one" between her and Linda (which even Linda admits isn't true), and that she's the favorite of their parents (and she most definitely is not).
• It's All About Me: In general Gayle tends to have a pretty self-centered mindset, and at her worse moments, Gayle will try to steal her sister's husband, be upset when Bob takes down her clearly unsettling paintings for the kids' artwork and fake a leg injury all because she wants love and attention without anyone else's consideration.
• Jabba Table Manners: Implied. As we see in Tina's story in "The Gayle Tales", Gayle eats with her mouth open (to where you can still clearly see the food in her mouth) in a pretty unappealing manner.
• Jerkass: Despite thinking so little of herself, that doesn't stop her from telling Linda that she is better and sexier out of them both with off-hand comments, though Linda mostly brushes her off.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Gayle is without a doubt one of the most selfish people around, but she's absolutely disgusted when she finds out Gloria, Al and Linda had been lying to her all this time about her pet goldfish being immortal in "An Incon-Wheelie-ent Truth" and that Linda and Bob were lying to their kids in a similar manner, so she set forth to expose the truth as she refused to let Linda lie to her children the same way their own parents lied to them.
  • Likewise in "Purple Rain-Union", she is pretty accurate when she states that the reunion made Linda become even more inconsiderate of others.
  • When she brings up the "Ottoman Incident" in "Have Yourself A Maily Linda Christmas", she angrily confronts her parents on how they completely forgot about her even when Gloria tried making excuses. While the situation was poorly thought out on Gayle's end, Gloria had the ability to resolve it quickly but proceeded to ignore it entirely for no good reason. Worth reminding that Linda never confronts their parents about anything, and it shows that even Gayle knows that just because Gloria's her mother that it doesn't mean she has to put up with her crap.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: At her worst she's obnoxious and hard to deal with, but at her best she shows that despite her strange and selfish tendencies that at her core she's still a decent woman who genuinely loves and cares for her family members and at times shows that she's not above doing them favors when the time calls for it (such as providing her nieces probably-expensive Boyz 4 Now tickets).
• Karma Houdini: Gayle stole Mr. Business off of a porch all the way back in Season 4, and to this day she has yet to be caught or punished for effectively kidnapping someone's pet.
  • No matter how many times Gayle's nonsense inconveniences or outright hinders things for the Belchers, she never actually pays any consequences for her actions because Linda makes sure nobody criticizes her even when she could really use it.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: She certainly thinks she's this, but the show goes to great lengths to show how hard she averts it. Even ignoring how Gayle can be selfish and jerkish, her cats absolutely hate her—she stole Mr. Business from someone's porch and pepper sprayed another one of her cats because she somehow mistook it for a prowler attempting to break in and rape her. Additionally, her cats seem willing to try and claw her eyes out, and she mentions keeping them on a vegetarian diet, all but stating she doesn't properly feed them.
• Lack of Empathy: Downplayed, but Gayle doesn't seem to understand how she manages to inconvenience her family members with her problems and mainly focuses on herself, but despite those instances, she is still capable of returning favors to them, such as Louise in "The Kids Run Away" and Bob in "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled".
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Although she drives Bob insane half the time and even though he doesn't really like her because of the way she relies on Linda without consideration, Gayle still for the most part treats him a lot better than Gloria does as she actually returned the favor of pulling him out of the snow when he had done the same for her in the same episode. Not to mention that she went out of her way to buy Tina, Louise and herself some concert tickets for Boyz 4 Now, well aware that they were a band that her oldest niece loved. Also in spite of the way she inconveniences and leans on Linda for finances and emotional support, they still genuinely enjoy each other's company even when Gayle doesn't need anything from her. At the end of the day, even though she can be a massive inconvenience to the Belchers, she's much less of a nuisance than Gloria and is almost never malicious.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Recent episodes have shown that Gayle and Gloria are essentially no different from one another with them both having extremely obnoxious personalities (especially to Bob), a lack of consideration for others, a generally self-centered outlook on things and their reliance on Linda. The fact that Bob can barely stand either of them just further nails in this trope that Gayle got a lot of her obnoxiousness from her mother, and rather fittingly they don't get along because their respective selfish tendencies constantly clash against each other.
• The Load: In general Gayle tends to play this in regards to the family as it is her lack of emotional stability and financial stupidity that often hinders or outright foils the rest of the Belcher's plans or finances depending on the situation.
• Modesty Shorts: "Yurty Rotten Scoundrels" reveals that Gayle wears biker shorts under her everyday long green skirt.
• Ms. Red Ink: Spends money on random endeavors like it's her last day on Earth. It's pretty clear that without Linda as a generous (perhaps too generous) donor, she'd be destitute.
• NEET: "As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps" reveals that Gayle tends to quit whatever job she lands within a single day, which confirms that for the most part she's unemployed and has no stable income (as she doesn't work long enough to get a paycheck), and whenever she's not visiting the Belchers or wrapped up in the plot of the week she's often seen lounging at her apartment doing nothing (well, nothing productive). Exactly how she's not living on the streets is unknown, although given Linda has been shown donating money for some of Gayle's artistic ventures it's likely that Linda is setting some money aside for Gayle's rent (and in fact, it's entirely possible that keeping Gayle's head above water is a contributing factor in why the Belchers are struggling so much with their own rent).
• Never My Fault: A variation of sorts. Gayle's a very insecure woman but never actually makes an effort to better herself (not helped by Linda forbidding the family from directly pointing out her flaws) and seems unable to see how her problems act as a hindrance on her family and seldom takes responsibility for whenever she does. "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled" is one of the biggest examples, however she does end up admitting that it was her fault and makes it up to Bob by pulling him back home.
• No Social Skills: Despite being a grown woman, Gayle's social skills are significantly lacking and much like her niece Tina, doesn't seem to get what's appropriate and what's inappropriate. Although we don't really see her socializing with others, based on her overall behavior one can only assume that she doesn't have much of a social life, if any whatsoever.
• Obfuscating Disability: In "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled", it's revealed that she has a tendency to fake injuries and illnesses to get attention. Since she doesn't actually get herself sick or injured, she's more this than Münchausen Syndrome.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In the same episode as above, she may or may not have done this in order to get attention after her lover left her behind by making an excuse to visit his aunt. Except he did go to visit his aunt for Thanksgiving, and Gayle was just unable to cope with not spending time with him for one day.
• Obliviously Evil: Downplayed, Gayle is far from evil but she does nothing but inconvenience and disturb her extended family, bleed her doting sister dry and then she's also a terrible pet owner. However, it's repeatedly shown that Gayle genuinely doesn't understand how her actions often negatively impact the people and animals around her.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: If it weren't for Linda, Bob would admit he hates Gayle. This is shown to be justified on Bob's part, as he tends to get the brunt of Gayle's most manipulative actions and would prefer to have nothing to do with her if he could honestly help it.
• One-Track-Minded Artist: When Gayle was introduced, she was an aspiring artist whose paintings were all of animal butts. It's as disturbing and weird as it sounds.
• On the Rebound: If she thinks she's been dumped (like in "The Gayle Tales" or "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled"), her first move afterwards is to try and seduce Bob, who reacts about as well as one would expect him to.
• Operation: Jealousy: Linda notes that Gayle tends to fall in love with whoever Linda's with. This resulted in her lusting after Bob for most of "Dr. Yap", until Linda intentionally used this to get Gayle interested in Dr. Yap instead.
• The Pig-Pen: Implied, similar to her niece Tina, a few of Gayle's appearances and outlandish comments imply that she doesn't take care of her hygiene either and then her studio apartment doesn't look the cleanest either, owning three cats she doesn't take proper care of may have something to do with it. Also, in two different episodes, she had pink eye and a disgusting rash on her feet and ankles, which is probably a result of her dirty living space.
• Prone to Tears: "The rule is you never tell Aunt Gayle anything she can't handle." She becomes somewhat less fragile with time, though not by much.
• Psychological Projection: At the end of "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled", after an entire episode of making Bob deal with the absolute worst of her shenanigans, she has the gall to say that Bob drives her crazy. Bob is too tired of her shenanigans to actually call her out on it.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Varies between this at her worst and Womanchild at her best, but even then it's almost amazing how someone as neurotic, unstable and childish as Gayle has survived on her own, although she still relies greatly on Linda when it comes to finances and validation to the point where Linda still feels a need to watch over her because of her lack of emotional stability.
• Really Gets Around: Gayle has dated a lot of men, but because of her very neurotic attitude, she is unable to keep them for too long. The only date to last longer than one episode is Mr. Frond, who lasts for about six episodes before he ruins things by cheating on Gayle.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The introverted Blue Oni (with blue glasses and purple shirt) to her sister Linda's extroverted Red Oni (with red glasses and red shirt).
• Sanity Ball: She holds this in "The Kids Run Away" when she manages to truly relate to Louise on her level regarding her fear of getting her cavity fixed, and convinces her to see it as a game of make-believe. This works.
• Shared Family Quirks: Gayle and Tina also display a lot in common, paralleling Gene taking a lot after Linda and Louise taking a lot after Bob. Both are crazy about men, somewhat perverted, both wear glasses and are somewhat neurotic and unlucky when it comes to love. It also helps that out of the Belcher siblings, Tina is the closest to Gayle and doesn't seem to find her weird like Gene and Louise do (as they openly remarked that Gayle should be a mental patient).
• Small Name, Big Ego: Her paintings of animal anuses are disgusting and unsettling, her plays are long and overly graphic, and her homemade board game is long and overly complex to the point of making a house-rules game of Monopoly seem like a game of Connect 4. In short, she's not good at anything. Yet Gayle heavily prides herself in her creative skills (for instance, she claims the reason her board game isn't on the market is because it was "too good" for major companies to even touch), and the only reason the Belchers don't tell her the criticism she needs to hear is because Linda doesn't want her to completely fall apart.
• Speech Impediment: While no longer present, it's stated in "Purple Rain-Union" that she used to have this (of the Porky Pig Pronunciation variety).
• Spoiled Brat: She can be viewed as such due to Linda acting as her Parental Substitute. While it's clear Gloria and Al definitely did not spoil her, Linda more than made up for it in her well-meaning effort to protect her sister. As an adult, Gayle's a neurotic, entitled brat who constantly goes to Linda for money and attention which Linda frequently gives her no matter what sort of detriment it proves to herself or her family.
• Stalker with a Crush: Has admitted to going on second dates that "the other person didn't know about".
• Strange Minds Think Alike: With Mr. Frond. They start dating because of this.
• Take This Job and Shove It: "As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps" reveals she tends to quit whatever job she gets within a day. She doesn't even stick around long enough to get a single paycheck. It takes Linda's intervention to stop her from doing it again (although later episodes indicate this was only a temporary success).
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Not nearly as bad as her mother in this regard, but she tends to be a bit too reliant on Linda's Big Sister Instinct.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: Gayle has both extremely low self-esteem and an extremely fragile ego, something Linda is painfully aware of. Anything her more socially successful sister has, Gayle wants, even if it's her own husband. Linda has also gone out of her way to downplay or just straight up deny any kind of success or good news she has to Gayle just to prevent her from becoming insanely jealous. She's done this for years and is still doing this all to preserve Gayle's ego. Basically, it means that anytime Linda has something good happen to her, she can't enjoy it without Gayle getting jealous of her.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Her default hairstyle is a ponytail.
• Too Dumb to Live: Once tried to let her cat drive. Somehow, the worst that happened was simply Gayle's license getting suspended (and not even for very long).
• Took a Level in Dumbass: While Gayle has some very rare moments of insight and can figure out when Linda's actually in the wrong for a change, it seems that throughout the seasons her already limited intelligence has gotten significantly lower, to the point where she believes Louise's obviously ill-translated Spanish during an even more obvious bogus Spanish song Tina sang, somehow thinking a turtleneck make a good substitute for pants and commented on Bob making turkey 'every year' on Thanksgiving.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: At the same time, Gayle already had issues in the earlier seasons but at least displayed some modicum of decency and affection to her family. However, in later seasons Gayle became even more self-centered and inconsiderate of others, including her own family, whom she treats like an afterthought unless she needs something (especially money) from Linda. It's to the point where at one point Bob straight-up admits he hates Gayle because of how selfish she is and how she repeatedly detriments his family with her inability (or outright refusal) to take care of herself and expecting Linda to do just that for her.
• Too Much Alike: The one episode Gayle and Gloria interact in, "Have Yourself a Maily Linda Christmas", shows them as openly hostile to each other because their selfish and needy personalities clash.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Toxic Sister, actually. Linda goes through a lot to help and protect Gayle because of Gayle's neurosis, but that often proves a detriment to the rest of her family (but mainly Bob). In "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled," Linda gets more upset at Bob admitting how much he hates Gayle then at Gayle faking her injury and making Bob drag her around in an inflatable pool among all the other stuff she forced Bob to help with because she wanted attention. The biggest example would have to be "Dr. Yap," where Linda is more than willing to let Gayle believe she's having an affair with Bob as a way to boost Gayle's self-esteem, even as Bob makes it repeatedly clear how much he does not want to do this and how forceful Gayle's getting. While Linda's love for her sister is sweet, the fact that it repeatedly comes at others' detriment isn't.
• The Unfavorite: Heavily implied in "Have Yourself A Maily Little Christmas", where she insists she's the favorite daughter. The fact that is the first time she's ever been seen interacting with her parents, who have had more involvement with Linda and her family, suggests otherwise. It also shows within the interactions themselves—they act courteous to Linda even when mistreating her, but they're openly hostile with Gayle and much of the episode's subplot sees them bickering with each other.
• Ungrateful Bitch:
  • Linda often goes to great lengths to help Gayle with her hobbies, and will drop everything to ensure her happiness. To pay back this generosity, Gayle has tried to steal her sister's husband from her (fortunately for Linda her husband has way more integrity than Gayle), and openly brags about supposedly being their parents' favorite (she's not).
  • She expects Bob to go along with the lies she tells Gloria and Al about how rich and successful she is. In return for him doing so, she constantly makes comments at his expense like "keeping the bathroom he always stinks up" and claiming Bob flirted with her (non-existent) boyfriend "Dirk Moneyrich", ignoring that Bob has no incentive to help her and could just throw her to the wolves at any moment.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In "Turkey in a Can". She's not the person who's dumping the turkeys in the toilet, but her actions are nonetheless why they keep ending up there. Bob is allergic to her cats, meaning she did the smart thing and brought them directly to his apartment, forcing Bob to take allergy pills, causing him to sleepwalk, thus causing the whole toilet-turkey incident.
• Womanchild: At her best, Gayle is very childish and naive, moreso than a 42 year-old woman should be. It's to the point where Gayle's 9-year-old niece Louise mentions that Linda lets the kids babysit Gayle and that she's a handful to watch over.

Gloria and Al Genarro

Gloria (née Rinaldi) and Al Genarro

"This one, he is nuts, but guess what? Having a family makes you go nuts."

Gloria voiced by: Renee Taylor
Al voiced by: H. Jon Benjamin ("Crawl Space"), Sam Seder (Season 3 onwards)

Linda and Gayle's parents, Bob's parents-in-law, and the Belcher kids' maternal grandparents. Bob really doesn't like them, and while this dislike initially seems cliched and unreasonable it's later shown to be more than justified—Gloria is a genuinely awful person who makes Linda do everything for her, and Al (while not directly awful) enables his wife's poor behavior.

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• Abusive Parents: Gloria is a rather disturbing depiction of the emotionally abusive and demanding type. She frequently takes advantage of Linda's generosity, getting her to do things that Gloria could easily do on her own (with much less effort than if Linda got involved) and otherwise ignoring Linda entirely unless she wants something from her. She also doesn't mind stealing from her daughter (the inciting incident being a phone charger) and trying to lie about it, despite all evidence to the contrary. She also exploits Linda's familial love to get away with it all, as she knows Linda won't let anyone call her out on her crap. And all that's just towards Linda—she's also neglectful and dismissive of Gayle, shows no interest in Gayle's (admittedly lacking) life (to the point that she only gets along with Gayle when she thinks that Gayle is obscenely rich), and at one point fails to take notice that Gayle has disappeared during a Christmas visit (really hiding inside the ottoman), leaving Gayle trapped for hours while she goes to see a movie. And to top it off, she has the gall to say that she should be the one upset at Gayle for being understandably angry at being forgotten.
• Accomplice by Inaction: Just because Al isn't directly abusive and manipulative like Gloria doesn't make him any better than her. He's so out of it that he does nothing to reign in Gloria's horrid behavior, and it's implied he was just as enabling even before senility kicked in.
• All Take and No Give: Not only does Gloria regularly take advantage of Linda's generosity, she also gives almost nothing back in return.
  • The crux of "The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets" involved Linda informing the kids they had to give Gloria better birthday gifts instead of half-assing it like they usually do. This would be fair in any other situation—if not for the fact that we've never seen Gloria give the kids anything, and have only heard of such gift-giving once. And even then, the one time it's ever mentioned Gloria gave the kids something (in "The Terminalator II: Terminals of Endearment"), it was an extremely thoughtless gift—as a Christmas gift to all three kids, she gave a singular book that was specifically about retirement. Louise claims that exact book had originally been a gift from the Belchers to her.
  • In "Poops!... I Didn't Do It Again", she calls up Linda and demands the Belchers make an impressive video for Gloria and Al's wedding anniversary in order to show up a woman at their retirement community, even though she never does anything special for any of the Belchers' important dates. It's to the point that everyone but Tina tries to shoot Linda down before she can even finish explaining what Gloria wants.
  • To a lesser extent, when "It Snakes a Village" reveals Gloria and Al's dead-bedroom relationship (to the point that Linda hasn't seen them so much as kiss since before she met Bob), it's Al who has to do all the heavy lifting to amend this.
• Character Catchphrase: Gloria has a nagging "Aaal!" which is always directed to her husband.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first few seasons, Gloria was obliviously obnoxious and pretty annoying but still a fundamentally decent person who could be genuinely helpful if the situation was serious enough. In contrast, in her later appearances she is a horrible person whose jerkassery knows no limits, not even to her own children.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Al often spaces out, which gets on Gloria's nerves.
• Covert Pervert: Al has a secret fetish for women popping balloons by sitting on them. Bob helps him eventually tell Gloria about it to help rekindle their sex drive.
• A Day in the Limelight: "It Snakes a Village" is just about the only episode where Al actually gets any significant focus beyond being either comic relief or a glorified plot device.
• Disproportionate Retribution: A flashback in "Sauce Side Story" reveals she was responsible for worsening the Volpintesta family feud when her cousin Lorraine wore her own wedding dress at Gloria and Al's wedding. Gloria responded by dumping punch down Lorraine's back and then punching her in the back. Normally Gloria might've had some right to be angry, except Lorraine later admitted that she only wore the dress because it was all she had to wear. In other words, Gloria made things worse between the two sides of the family and ruined any chance at reconciliation for fifty years because she had a petty overreaction to something that was Innocently Insensitive at worst.
• Entitled Bitch: For all the absolute hell she gives the Belchers (especially Bob), she always expects them to do something for her as soon as she gives the word.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Downplayed, Gloria and Al are actually lighter examples compared to others, but nonetheless Gloria isn't really loved by any of her grandchildren. Even though they claim to love her, it's mostly out of obligation (Louise) or a naive willingness to overlook how awful she is (Tina mostly), but ultimately this just goes to show that Gloria's grandchildren don't think highly of her and are never excited to be around her.
• Happily Married: Although their marriage had hit a two-decade lull, they manage to rectify things in "It Snakes a Village", and by Season 10 they're celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. Gloria has many, many faults, and is for all intents and purposes a horrible human being, but for the most part she seems genuinely happy with Al.
• Hated by All: Downplayed. Bob is the only one who overtly hates them, but the kids never jump out of their seats to see them (a sharp contrast to how excited they are to see Big Bob), and Louise even joins Bob in mocking Gloria's obnoxious voice. They're also outcasts in their senior community (and nearly get kicked out), and Gayle doesn't get along with them. Linda is the only one who seems to truly like them, although that comes from being oblivious to their faults, or unwilling to call them out through a misguided belief she needs to be accepting of how they act.
• Hate Sink: Abusive Parent who frequently invokes Taking Advantage of Generosity, a lying jerkass to her son-in-law, and a massive hypocrite to boot... Gloria must've hit the Hate Sink jackpot.
• Henpecked Husband: Al doesn't really do anything to stop or even call out Gloria's worst behavior, and even besides that Gloria is often seen nagging him or bossing him around.
• Hypocrite: Gloria rarely if ever dotes on her grandchildren and never gives them anything good, in sharp contrast to the kids' paternal grandfather. While the kids aren't necessarily entitled to anything, the hypocrisy comes in when "The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets" reveals that she wants the kids to give her better gifts, yet she can't be assed to do anything more than the bare minimum for them.
• Implausible Deniability: She insists she didn't steal a charger from the Belchers even after it falls out of her bag. Even when Bob points out a doodle Gene made on the charger (proving it's the same charger the Belchers lost), she acts as if Bob is just slandering her.
• Irony: Despite her having No Indoor Voice, Gloria hates loud noises.
• Ironic Name: The name "Gloria" (meaning "glory" or "glorious") would conjure up something positive about anyone with that name. There's almost nothing positive to say about this Gloria.
• It's All About Me: Gloria seems to focus on and think about herself as she very rarely mentions or thinks of her grandchildren and only interacts with Linda when she needs something. She's pretty much where both Linda and Gayle get their selfishness from.
• Jerkass: Gloria criticizes Bob each and every time she comes by for a visit, nags him about every little thing and while generally kind to her daughter Linda, tends to inconvenience her for unimportant reasons, has become a lot more demanding towards her and never really does anything for her despite all the things Linda does for her. She's also not that great towards her grandkids—although they rarely directly interact, Gloria seems to expect things from them while simultaneously not doing much for them.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Subverted. In Season 14's Premiere, her most recent criticism of Linda is how she doesn't have her kids do enough chores. This would be one of the very few valid criticisms that Gloria has made, as doing chores and pitching in is a pretty important lesson that parents should teach their children and pushovers like Bob and Linda could and probably should stand to teach this to their kids. She overlooks or forgets that Bob and Linda already have the kids helping them in the restaurant every day, and the kids refuse to do more unless they're given compensation.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In "Crawl Space", Gloria proves that she is capable of supporting her family, telling Mr. Frond to back off from trying to report Bob and Linda to authorities as they are parents trying their best under dire circumstances (and because he actually took the Belcher kids out of school during school hours to implicate their parents). Considering literally everything else about her, though, that heart of gold is more like a dirty, dirty bronze.
• Karma Houdini: Invoked, as Gloria not only never owns up to anything she does wrong, but Linda also never calls her out on it and never lets Bob do the same either, even making it a point that Bob can't bring up anything that Gloria has done. As a result, Gloria pretty much gets away with screwing over her daughter and her son-in-law every single time because Linda thinks it's okay to enable her bad behavior because she's her parent and she loves her. The only upside is that, since she lives down in Florida while the Belchers live in New Jersey, she doesn't actually see them too often (with some throwaway lines indicating their meet-ups are once a year at most).
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Gloria and Gayle are pretty much no different from each other. Both are obnoxious to Bob and Linda and have the couple do everything for them, also showing no concern for their wellbeing. Both are even willing to lie to their family just to get what they want. Ironically enough (or perhaps fittingly enough), Gloria and Gayle don't even get along with each other.
• Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: In contrast, Gloria and Linda are like night and day. Gloria's obnoxiousness and manipulative tendencies are nowhere to be seen in Linda, who only occasionally lies to her family to try and benefit them, not her. Linda also goes above and beyond for her family, compared to Gloria who does pretty much nothing for hers.
• Like Parent, Unlike Child: Her father Burt was implied to be a rational man who got caught up in the feud between his in-laws but otherwise refused to play an active role in it, while Gloria overreacted to an offense from her cousin Lorraine and halted any further attempts for reconciliation for fifty years. Burt was also implied to be a loving grandfather to Linda judging from how she only ever has nice things to say about him, whereas Gloria is a terrible grandmother who can't be bothered to remember how many kids Linda has unless she wants something from them. All in all, it appears Burt is the exact opposite of Gloria much like Gloria is the exact opposite of Linda.
• Never My Fault:
  • It's subtle and it doesn't mean much until the true depths of her character are revealed, but in "Crawl Space", when Gloria explains to Mr. Frond that family can drive good people nuts, notice how she never specifically includes herself in that equation even though she drives Bob crazy more than any other family member.
  • When Gayle calls her out for the "Ottoman Incident", Gloria insists that she has the right to be angry—in spite of the fact that she knew of Gayle's plan to surprise her cousin Donnie, claiming she didn't think she was serious about it even after Gayle was missing for a long time, which (even if Gloria didn't think she was in the ottoman) should've at least caused her to search for Gayle. Instead, Gayle didn't even become a second thought to her as she was left trapped in the ottoman for hours while Gloria and Al went with Donnie to see a movie. Yet in spite of all that, Gloria doesn't appear the slightest bit apologetic towards her daughter and never admits that she messed up by not even spending a second looking for her. As utterly stupid as Gayle's plan was, Gloria could have easily intervened when it backfired, making Gayle's anger when she didn't quite understandable.
  • Gloria never admits when she does something wrong, nor does she take any responsibility for her actions. In fact, when she obviously stole Linda's phone charger and Bob calls her out on it by showing all the evidence, Gloria angrily storms off, refusing to admit that she clearly stole her daughter's phone charger and claims that it's hers and Bob is forced to apologize to her despite the fact that he was rightfully angry at her not just for stealing the phone charger but for walking all over Linda.
    Bob: This isn't your charger. Admit it.
    Gloria: No. I'm not admitting anything. 'Cause it is my charger.
    Bob: Did you draw a butt on it?
    Gloria: I'm gonna go look for Al by myself, over there.
    Later
    Gloria: I'm glad you apologized, Bob. Because you were so wrong about the charger. I told everyone in the bathroom about it.
    Bob: I'm sure you did.
• Nice Guy: In contrast to his wife, Al is mostly decent towards Bob and never comes off as disrespectful. If anything, it's his obliviousness and sicknesses that gets under Bob's skin.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Gloria serves as a deconstruction by showing the exact kind of person it takes to be so unrepentantly obnoxious, and it's further shown that Bob is more than willing to call out just how awful a person she is. By Season 11, Bob outright admits he can't stand her and Al because they treat Linda like crap and he's tired of seeing Linda try to please them so much.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: We never learn what "Al" is short for, if it's even short for anything at all^note Alan/Allan/Allen, Albert, Alexander, Alfred, Alistair, Alphonse, Alton, and Alvin are all possibilities.
• Parental Favoritism: They never interact with both of their kids at the same time, but they quite clearly favor Linda. They've all but discarded Gayle because her life is in complete shambles, while Linda is at least living some semblance of a stable life.
• Satellite Character: See how many of these tropes apply to Gloria but not Al? Whenever the two factor into the plot, Al is almost always an afterthought compared to Gloria, and even in the case of Bob disliking them most of his vitriol is towards Gloria specifically.
• Scatterbrained Senior: Al is extremely absent-minded. Gloria is a downplayed case; she's not usually ditzy, but she's capable of some truly amazing feats of forgetfulness—for instance, she apparently has trouble remembering how many kids Bob and Linda have.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Gloria is obnoxious and unpleasant towards others, especially to Bob.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Might as well be Gloria's main character trait.
• Token Evil Teammate: In a family where even the worst people are still sympathetic and decent at heart (read: Louise, Gayle, and Big Bob), Gloria stands out by being a genuinely awful person with next-to-no redeeming qualities.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In her first two appearances, Gloria was obnoxious but in the end a decent person who was capable of paying respect towards Bob. Afterwards, what redeeming traits she had were completely wiped away as she became much more disrespectful towards Bob, demanding towards Linda, and overall rude and inconsiderate to everyone around her.
  • Downplayed with Al's case—even at his worst he's nowhere near as bad as Gloria, but the same appearances that showed Gloria becoming much worse also had Al growing from a mildly oblivious but nice guy to another obnoxious, grating presence one wouldn't blame Bob for finding annoying. He's also slightly ruder to Bob as well as to the rest of his family, and seems to barely even acknowledge that anyone's even there.
• Womanchild: Despite being elderly, Gloria acts very petulant. Many examples of her behavior include:
  • Demanding her own grandchildren make her better gifts and also making Linda make her a video tribute just because another family did so for their grandparents.
  • Churlishly criticizing the Christmas decorations in Bob's house.
  • Making a fuss over a magazine because it didn't have a specific actor on it and even claiming to give the employee a low score on the customer survey.
  • Quite literally pointing fingers at Bob and accusing him of losing Al.
  • Spurning Bob when she won't admit to a very blatant lie about stealing Linda's phone charger and even sulking in a bathroom and refusing to come out when Bob calls her out, forcing him to apologize for being right.
  • Indulging in a petty argument with her youngest daughter Gayle about the "Ottoman Incident" and more or less making Bob say she's in the right despite the fact that said incident was because of her clear disregard for Gayle's whereabouts.
• Ungrateful Bitch: As stated up above, with Gloria becoming increasingly disrespectful, difficult and demanding towards Bob, Linda and everyone else, she never gives any word of 'thanks' to Linda whenever she goes out of her way just to fulfill whatever demand she has for her, nor does she show any hint of gratitude towards Bob or anyone else despite everything that's done for her. It's to the point that Bob dreads every time she so much as gets mentioned because he knows he's going to have to do yet another thankless task for her. He actually tells Linda that he wouldn't mind the tasks as much if Gloria actually showed any semblance of kindness or gratitude about it.
• Useless Bystander Parent: Al. While it's slightly more justified nowadays given his senility, even when Linda and Gayle were kids he did nothing to hold Gloria back and is implied to have not cared that much about being a parent.

Volpintesta Siblings

Volpintesta Siblings

Pauline (left) and Claudia (right)

Tony (left) and Joe (right), these two dudes where this feud started

The second-oldest known generation of the Volpintesta family and the generation from which the family's longstanding feud began. The four members are Linda's grandmother Claudia, great-aunt Pauline, and great-uncles Tony and Joey (the latter two of whom directly started the feud).

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear whether Tony stabbed Joey on accident or on purpose. The ambiguity of this actually helped contribute to the feud, as the entire family argued over it.
• Feuding Families: Their feud began when Joey bought a house Tony had spent his entire life saving for, and worsened when Tony seemingly attacked Joey during an attempt at reconciliation. Claudia took Tony's side while Pauline took Joey's, and their respective descendants (save Pauline, who had none) carry on the feud to this day despite none of them having been born when it started (and the near-certainty that none of the original four Volpintesta siblings are even still alive to stoke the flames).
• Generation Xerox: Interestingly enough, Joey, the one who inconsiderately brought the house Tony spent his brother working for, has brown hair, while Tony, the one who actually worked hard to save up money for the house (only for his own brother to take it for himself), has black hair. A few generations later, their great grandchildren Linda and Gayle would have a similar relationship and even look like their great grandfathers, while they do get along their relationship is still toxic. Gayle is selfish and inconsiderate towards her sibling and has brown hair just like Joey, while Linda does everything she can to help out her family but is often inconvenienced by her sibling and has black hair just like Tony.
• Grandma's Recipe: Their mother Maria Volpintesta created a recipe for homemade Bolognese sauce. The Belcher kids try to track down said recipe, only to find out that nobody knows where it is—each side of the family thinks the other took it. Coupled with Claudia (the only one who also knew how to make it) being long dead, that means the recipe is pretty much lost for good.
• Out of Focus: Pauline is this during the siblings' focus episode, "Sauce Side Story". While Claudia's sauce recipe is the episode's main objective (not to mention Claudia is the ancestor of Linda's branch of the family) and Tony and Joey directly started the family feud that provides the episode's main conflict, all that's known about Pauline is that she sided with Joey.
• Posthumous Character: Claudia is confirmed to be dead, and it's all but stated that her siblings are long gone as well.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Claudia was the only one of her siblings who remembered their mother's Bolognese recipe, but never wrote it down or tried passing it down to Gloria, Linda, or Gayle. While the only physical copy was somewhere in Maria Volpintesta's home, Claudia could've saved everyone some grief if she shared the recipe.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: The reason the feud began—Tony spent his entire life saving up money for a house, only for Joey to buy the house before he could, rendering all his hard work pointless. Worsening matters is that Joey didn't even save up for it like Tony did—he married into a wealthy family and bought it using his newly-obtained fortune.

Burt Rinaldi

Burt Rinaldi

Burt with a kid Linda

Linda and Gayle's maternal grandfather, Gloria's father, Al's father-in-law, husband of Claudia Volpintesta, and brother-in-law to Tony, Joey, and Pauline Volpintesta. Linda thinks of him rather fondly, and from what little's been seen of him in flashbacks Burt appeared to be the Only Sane Man in the feud between Tony and Joey Volpintesta.

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• Doting Grandparent: It's obvious from how Linda speaks about him that Burt doted on her in a way Gloria and Al have never doted on their own grandchildren. She speaks fondly about how he'd put a coin on the bump on his nose and let Linda snatch it as a game. It's to the point that Linda becomes obsessed with a potato which looks disturbingly identical to him.
• Everyone Has Standards: While he may have been shocked when Lorraine showed up in a white dress to his daughter's wedding, Burt didn't seem to approve of Gloria attacking Lorraine in retaliation and he notably refused to take part when his brother-in-laws used it as an excuse to continue their petty fighting.
• Like Parent, Unlike Child: His daughter Gloria is, for all intents and purposes, a complete asshole who is a terrible mother and grandmother. From what little has been seen of Burt, he was clearly more rational and grounded and was a loving grandparent to Linda (it's not shown how Gayle feels about him though).
• Only Sane Man: Flashbacks imply that unlike the rest of the Volpintesta family, he refused to actively take sides during the feud. Unfortunately for him, it seems his wife Claudia forced him to side with her and her brother Tony after the forking incident, as he's seen being dragged away with an uncomfortable look on his face.
• Parents as People: While it's generally assumed Burt was a decent man, it calls into question how he managed to have a daughter who grew up to be as horrible as Gloria did. Looking at Gloria's character, which is full of entitlement and an inability to be criticised, and how Linda reminisces about Burt doting on her, it's possible that Burt may have been a bit too lenient with Gloria growing up. He certainly seemed a bit of a pushover in animated flashbacks, such as being forced into one side during the family feud.
• Posthumous Character: He's long dead by the present day.

Lorraine Parcone

Lorraine Parcone (née Volpintesta)

"Nico, who's in my spot? Ugly little car."

Voiced by: Susie Essman

The daughter of Joey Volpintesta and Gloria's first cousin.

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• Hypocritical Humor: She complains about how the members of Gloria's side of the family (the Rinaldis and Genarros) have the same distinctive voice. Her own voice is somewhat similar to Gloria's, especially when she yells.
• Innocently Insensitive: She wore her own wedding dress to Gloria's wedding, but she had nothing else to wear and meant no harm. Gloria being Gloria, this ended poorly and worsened the feud.
• Mama Bear: She gets pissed when Gayle accidentally stabs her son Nico with a fork.
• Riches to Rags: Downplayed; despite her mother's side of the family being very wealthy, Lorraine herself seems to only be middle class.

Nico Parcone

Nico Parcone

"I'm Nico. Um, who are all of you?"

Voiced by: John Gemberling

Lorraine's only son and Linda and Gayle's second cousin.

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• Disappeared Dad: His dad, Richard, isn't seen or mentioned, other than a flashback. From what y'all can guess, he died some time ago, considering how old Lorraine is.
• Basement-Dweller: Despite being close to Linda's age (due to Lorraine being around Gloria's age), he still lives with his mother and all signs point to him being unemployed.

Bob's Extended Family

Big Bob Belcher

Robert Belcher Sr.

"Listen, I know why you had to go. I can be...not great to work with. It was tough without your mom around. You did great on your own, you should be very proud."

Voiced by: H. Jon Benjamin ("Bob Fires the Kids"), Bill Hader ("Father of the Bob"), Eric Bauza (Season 12 onwards)

Bob's widowed father, Linda's father-in-law, the Belcher kids' paternal grandfather, and the owner of Big Bob's Diner. He and his son have spent the past two decades on extremely poor terms, though the tensions run as far back as Bob's childhood.

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• Abusive Parents: Downplayed. His overcritical Fantasy-Forbidding Father nature created a serious strain on his and his son's relationship to the point where Bob can barely stand even minor complaints from him.
• The Alcoholic: Bob mentions that he was one, although he seems to have quit by the present day. Given Bob's memories of him are largely during the period after his mother died, it becomes obvious where Big Bob's habit likely began.
• Alliterative Name: Not his real name, but his nickname—Big Bob Belcher.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite how overcritical he was, he did still try to get along with his son, giving him a Christmas present of changing the restaurant from "Big Bob's Diner" to "Big Bob's and Son's Diner" and wanting to be partners (only for Bob Jr. to refuse due to how impossible his dad was). By the end of "Father of the Bob", Bob realizes that his father kept the first review of Bob's Burgers; they both apologize for how they both treated each other. Bob says he's sorry for how he handled saying no to Big Bob's offer and accepts Big Bob for who he is, and Big Bob apologizes for being impossible to work with and says Bob has done well for himself and should be proud. "Interview with a Pop-pop-pire" shows them bonding over memories of Bob's late mother, and it's revealed Big Bob often neglected to mention her because he didn't want to upset Bob.
• Berserk Button: Not doing things his way, like serving a customer something different from his usual (even when the customer himself is cool with it).
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Especially noticeable when he and adult Bob are interacting - the two men look very similar, but Bob's eyebrows are drawn as a single line while Big Bob's eyebrows are bushy.
• Brutal Honesty: He's harsh but never lies about how he feels or thinks about things, which may have contributed to Bob's own frank nature.
• Control Freak: Refused to let Bob change the menu at all. It's why Bob chose not to become partners with him.
• The Cynic: "Wharf, Me Worry?" reveals he has a persistent pessimistic streak. Not only does he have this in common with Bob, Bob's fear that Big Bob will rub off on the kids suggests Bob's own pessimism was actually caused in part by Big Bob's.
• Doting Grandparent: He has a genuine soft spot for his grandchildren, who he lets roam around in his basement to find a gift for Bob. As a result, the kids are always happy to see him, a sharp contrast to their maternal grandparents (who the kids are never excited to visit and never have positive things to say about).
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • We don't see his face, but we hear his voice, and get our first glimpse at what kind of father he was in "Bob Fires the Kids".
  • His restaurant also makes an appearance in the background of many episodes, as a picture in Bob's living room.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In "Bob Fires the Kids" Bob and Linda say that Big Bob sold his diner, and some ladies had bought the place. Fast forward to "Father of the Bob"; Big Bob still has the same diner, and it's still where it was in the flashback implying that he either bought his diner back, or this has been retconned.
  • In "Bob Fires the Kids" he's set up as The Alcoholic, but in all of his future appearances he shows no signs of alcoholism.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: He threw away the first burger Bob ever cooked, the "Baby You Can Chive My Car Burger", because it wasn't the usual order the customer gets (note that the customer himself wanted to try it). He was extremely critical and demanding of Bob, always wanting Bob to cook like him and not be creative. He admits that he was too hard on Bob when they reconcile.
• Follow in My Footsteps: He wanted to pass down ownership of his diner to Bob (well, co-ownership, but still) and keep it as a Family Business. While Bob stayed in the restaurant game, he didn't inherit the diner and instead opened another restaurant an hour away, which Big Bob hasn't quite approved of.
• Freudian Excuse: "Father of the Bob" suggests his distant attitude and the way he raised Bob both came from being unable to cope with his wife's death. "Interview with a Pop-pop-pire" never outright states it but basically confirms it.
• The Ghost: He technically debuts in "Bob Fires the Kids", but only his voice is heard (and it's in flashbacks anyways). It's not until "Father of the Bob" that he's given a physical appearance.
• Grandparent Favoritism: He and Bob have a very strained relationship that, even after they make up in "Father of the Bob", has only improved at a slow pace. He also doesn't seem to like his daughter-in-law that much, looking rather annoyed by her comment on him shrinking with age. However, he adores his grandchildren, dotes on them, gives them money and lets them into his basement when they need stuff, a stark contrast from their maternal grandparents.
• I Didn't Tell You Because You'd Be Unhappy: He refrained from telling Bob much about his late mother because he assumed it would make Bob upset. When Bob finds out, he agrees that it would, but adds that it'd also make him feel better because it'd allow him and Big Bob to remember her.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He greatly dislikes Bob's "gimmick" burgers. Since some episodes show the Burgers of the Day aren't bought very often, and that Bob devotes so much time and money into making them, he may have a point.
• Jerkass Realization: He may have a ton of flaws, but at the end of "Father of the Bob" he's grown enough to own up to said flaws and admit he didn't do that great a job as a parent.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Definitely harsh and flawed but he doesn't mean any harm. Made his son work each summer instead of having fun and was always critical of how he would cook. Despite his strained relationship with Bob, he does love his grandchildren, daughter-in-law, and his son enough to keep the first review of their family restaurant, admits that he is hard to work with, and believes that his son has done fine on his own, and should be proud. He also shows genuine regret for his worst actions, and in his later years is working to mend his relationship with his son.
• A Lighter Shade of Gray: Compared to the rest of the Belchers' extended family. Linda's immediate relatives are selfish, demanding, and might as well be the poster children for Taking Advantage of Generosity. Big Bob is a Control Freak and a Fantasy-Forbidding Father, but he at least genuinely cares for his family and is able to realize his mistakes, making him much more sympathetic in the long run in spite of his many flaws.
• Meaningful Name: His nickname can be taken to refer to his large size (he's slightly taller and heftier than his six-foot son) or the fact that he's the older of the two Bobs (owing to being the other Bob's father).
• Mistaken for Gay: To be fair, he does frequent a gay bar. But he's not actually gay himself, he's just returning the owner's patronage that is given at his own diner.
• The Mourning After: His wife has been dead for over thirty years, but there's nothing that even hints that Big Bob ever pursued another relationship after her, as it's clear that he's still not quite over her death and Bob had no known mother-figure after his actual mother died.
• Near-Death Experience: In his 20's, he nearly got crushed by a tree on a camping trip. The incident made him hate camping, but it also brought him and his future wife closer and convinced him that he wanted to marry her.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: His real name is Robert Sr., but he doesn't even go by Bob, going exclusively by Big Bob (or Pop-Pop to his grandchildren) to differentiate him from his son.
• Parents as People: Big Bob would have his son work in the restaurant all summer rather than let him play outside and make friends, resulting in Bob befriending inanimate objects and having No Social Skills as an adult. He stifled his son's creativity and chastised him for trying to go off-menu. However, Big Bob still tried to do a good job as a single parent, and Bob eventually recognizes that while he did a far from perfect job he wasn't (intentionally) the asshole Bob believed he was, allowing the two to make up after decades of tension.
• Poor Communication Kills: While the bulk of the strain on Bob and Big Bob's relationship stemmed from the latter's Control Freak tendencies, adding to it was the fact that Big Bob isn't much of a communicator, causing him to come off as distant and cold when he doesn't intend to. For instance, he neglects to tell Bob much about his late mother because he assumed mentioning her would upset Bob, when in reality it would have allowed the two to bond over remembering her.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Regularly hangs out at the neighboring gay bar to watch Scandal. He's not gay, he's just returning the favor since the owner is a regular of his.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears in the flesh twice, but many of Bob's issues and quirks seen throughout the series like struggling to run his restaurant properly, talking to inanimate objects and having No Social Skills can all be traced back to Big Bob in some way.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Looks a lot like his son, albeit with a lot less hair on his head. When Bob has his hair powdered white in "Secret Admiral-irer" (It Makes Sense in Context), the end result looks uncannily similar to Big Bob. Likewise, in "Interview with a Pop-pop-pire", young Big Bob looks just like present-day Bob, albeit with bushier eyebrows.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His not so ideal methods of raising Bob may have been him doing his best, but it had a less than ideal impact on his son. Because of it, Bob has grown into a man with No Social Skills and prioritizing his creative burger skills over actual business skills, being on the of the key reasons behind the Perpetual Poverty the Belchers live with.
• Vocal Evolution: In "Bob Fires the Kids" Big Bob sounds just like Bob, but a bit deeper, whereas he has a much more distinct voice in his later appearances^note while he has three different voice actors, Bill Hader and Eric Bauza give him nearly the same voice with only minor differences.
• Was Too Hard on Him: By his own admission, he realizes why Bob left and that he was a difficult person to work with after his wife passed away.

Lily Belcher

Lily Belcher (née Lombard)

In Big Bob's Flashback, Season 12

^{In the Bob's Burgers Movie}

Bob's mother — not much is known about her other than she was married to Big Bob and she died of unknown causes 32-33 years ago, which significantly impacted her husband and son. First mentioned in Season 3 with her fate revealed in Seasons 5 and 7, her only appearance is a flashback in Season 12 and a flashback in The Bob's Burgers Movie.

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• Alliterative Name: Before getting married, her full name was Lily Lombard.
• A Day in the Limelight: A posthumous case in "Show Mama from the Grave", which focuses on the Belchers going to visit her grave. The same episode also reveals her full name and gives a timeframe on how long ago she died.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Bob was close with his mother and has nothing but nice things to say about her, in contrast to the strained relationship he has with his father.
• The Faceless: In "Interview with a Pop-Pop-pire", Lily was a very important part of Big Bob's "tree incident" story, but the most that gets seen of her are her legs. Her face is finally shown in The Bob's Burgers Movie.
• Given Name Reveal: First mentioned in Season 3's "Bob Fires the Kids", but her name is only revealed in later episodes. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentle-Mannequins" (also in Season 3) reveals her maiden name to be Lombard through her brother Ernest, but her first name Lily wasn't revealed until "Show Mama from the Grave", all the way in Season 13.
• Good Parents: Bob and Big Bob both remember her fondly.
• The Lost Lenore: To Big Bob. Her death significantly impacted him, to the point that not only did he never remarry after her death, but also to where there are no hints that Big Bob ever even casually pursued another relationship after being widowed.
• Military Brat: Her father Billy served during World War II.
• Never Bareheaded: The only flashback we see of her features her with a pink hat, and then it even extends to drawings that the kids draw with their grandmother wearing a hat. However, she isn't shown wearing a hat a baby.
• Plucky Girl: In The Bob's Burgers Movie, Linda says that Bob remembers her mantra being "Hope and grit keeps you out of the you-know-what," showing her to be a little more optimistic (or at least willing to fake optimism) than Bob and Big Bob.
• Posthumous Character: She died of unknown causes approximately 32 or 33 years before the events of the show, and her death greatly affected how Big Bob raised Bob to be the person he is today.
• Serendipitous Survival: In the aforementioned "tree incident" story, she only avoided getting crushed by a tree because she got up to use the bathroom. This actually contributed to Big Bob's decision to propose to her.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Despite dying when Bob was young, Lily has had quite the influence on the Belcher family. Her death helped contribute to Bob and Big Bob's relationship becoming strained, and a knit cap she wore eventually became the inspiration for Louise's bunny ears.
• Spanner in the Works: Her constant crying as a baby led to her mother's discovery of a Nazi spy in their apartment building, which then resulted in the dismantling of an entire spy ring.
• Strong Family Resemblance: It's subtle but on rewatch one can see that she almost resembles an older version of her granddaughter Louise, and that's not just including the hat.

Alice Lombard

Alice with a baby Lily

Voiced by: Cristin Milioti

Bob's maternal grandmother and the mother of Lily Belcher.

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• Action Survivor: She's an ordinary citizen compared to her husband Billy who is serving his country overseas. But she was able to survive a confrontation with a Nazi spy and was instrumental in dismantling an entire spy ring.
• Posthumous Character: Given she was an adult during World War II and the rest of Bob's family doesn't seem to have met her, it's practically certain she's been dead for a while.
• Shared Family Quirks: Just like her grandson, she would utter "Oh my God" in exasperation or whenever a situation got particularly intense.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Looks like an older version of her great-granddaughter, Louise, except without her bunny ears and a slightly different hairstyle.

Gertie

Gertie and Lily

Voiced by: Linda Lavin

Alice's mother, Lily's maternal grandmother, and Bob's great-grandmother.

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• Mama Bear: When she walks in on Alice being actively threatened by Mr. Miller, she shows no hesitation in jumping physically to her defense.
• Never Mess with Granny: When she comes home to find her daughter Alice and granddaughter Lily being cornered by a Nazi spy, she only needs a moment to assess the situation before springing into action to save her family.
• No Last Name Given: Alice's surname "Lombard" comes from her husband Billy, and no maiden name (which would be Gertie's last name) is given.
• Parents as People: Is more than a little snarky towards her daughter, and doesn't take her suspicions of a Nazi spy in their building seriously at first, dismissing it as Alice hearing things due to sleep deprivation. Alice even specifically opines that Gertie is much better suited to be a grandma than a mom.
• Posthumous Character: She's already an older woman in 1941, and given the show takes place 70+ years later it'd be quite a surprise for her to still be alive today.

Ernest Lombard

Ernest carrying away "Nadine"

Bob's uncle and Lily's little brother. He used to be a store owner before passing on.

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• Unknown Character: We only get to know three things about him: 1) He's dead, 2) He used to own a store and 3), that he's Lily's younger brother. Those are about it.

Other Relatives

Aunt

Bob's Aunt who was 1st mentioned in Gene's Christmas Break. She gave Bob the Percy McTinsel-bud's Tinsel Machine record.

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• The Stoner: According to Bob, his Aunt used to smoke a lot of pot
• Unknown Character: We do know that she lived during the 1970s and that she used to smoke a lot of pot but that's pretty much it but we don't know which side of Bob's family she's from or, for that matter, what her exact connection to Bob is ^note  If she's an aunt by marriage, Big Bob's sister, adopted, or, for that matter, if she's an honorary aunt.

Cousin Vanessa

Bob's Cousin, who's in a cult

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• Babysitter from Hell: According to Bob, she'd make a bad babysitter because she's in a cult. We don't know if this is true or not but Bob doesn't trust her anyways.
• Unknown Character: Ain't a whole to know about her besides that she's a member of a cult and Bob doesn't trust her to babysit the kids.

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